Avatar of the Water tribe
by Bookaholic346
Summary: Set four hundred years after Aang, This story is about a Water tribe avatar that gets banished at age 10. I really suck at summaries so just cut me a break and try the story, it's a lot better than it sounds. ;
1. Introduction

_Yes, I am writing another story without finishing the others I have started, but what can I say? I'm a bit of a scatter-brain, always being distracted by something else. I also had my friend on my back saying that I really need to put a chapter on already, the wait was driving her mad. I hope this lives up to your expectations, Sam!_

_Enjoy my new story!_

_; )_

* * *

Introduction

Water, Earth, fire, Air. The Four elements that shape the world we live in, they can live in harmony in nature around us. Unfortunately human nature is quite different. The world is divided. The Water Tribes in the north and south poles. The Earth kingdom in the east, the Fire nation in the west. And the Air nomads in the four corners of the world. We are all humans, aren't we? All the same? Apparently not. For in each nation there are a small group of people that have power, the power of their element. Bending. The gift that a small fraction are born with. Some fire nation Babies grow up to be great fire benders and some water nation babies grow up to be great water benders. No person from one nation can bend the element of another. It is the way it will always be.

There is one person who can though. The one person who has broken all these rules and scattered them to the wind. No one knows how they started, only that they are here now. One person being reborn over and over.

I am talking about the Avatar.

The Avatar, Master of all four elements, Often the only thing standing in the way of war, destruction and confusion. Without the Avatar, we would destroy each other. The Avatar cycle: Water, earth, Fire, Air, is the cycle which tells us the nation in which the next avatar is born, seems to guide us. Each nation displays excitement as the old avatar dies from the nation before them. Which child would grow up to be one of the most powerful benders on the planet?

Which one is the Avatar?

* * *


	2. Kaiya

_Here's the next chapter, Hopefully it's not too bad. I had a bit of trouble writing it, I think I Had to rewrite it about 10 times! Well enjoy!_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 1

Kaiya looked out of her window and into the dark back garden. Her mother was there hanging up the washing on the line. Her attention was clearly on making sure that none of her precious clothes blew away in the cold arctic wind that swept across the city. She wouldn't notice if one of her many children slipped away for a couple of hours. There were times where Kaiya would have thought she was going crazy by being glad she had a Billion brothers and sisters. Now however, she was thankful.

She scampered out of the room she shared with her twin brother, Kouyo. He wasn't there. He was lucky. He got to go practice bending with the masters. He was going to be a great Water Bender. She would be lucky even to learn the stuff he gets to. It really wasn't fair, how only boys could learn how to fight with their bending. Girls only learnt how to Heal. Not that Healing wasn't great. It just isn't as exciting as fighting.

Kaiya was lucky though. Her Grandmother, Shaiya was from the southern water tribe. Where they let girls fight. So Shaiya was now teaching her all of the southern water tribe bending. Shaiya was a master, just like that stubborn old Master Perrou that taught Kouyo. But Kaiya had to learn in secret.

She crept to the front door and slowly slipped on her seal skin boots. She slid on her hand me down Parka coat in Water tribe blue and did up all the buttons without a sound. Once the 10 year old was ready in her winter clothes she slowly opened the front door so it wouldn't squeak and stepped outside into the frosty air. She ghosted along the path and down the street until she met the dead end of the city wall. Looking around her to check if anyone would see she raised one hand in front of her and concentrated. With a sudden flick of her palm the ice wall turned to water. Another sweeping motion of both her hands and the water split down the middle, leaving a doorway just big enough for her willowy frame. After stepping through she bought her hands back together and flicked her palms up again. The wall was a smooth, white ice once again and, more importantly, she was outside the city walls.

* * *

It didn't take too long after that to get to the cave where they practiced their bending. She crawled in through the hidden entrance and then stood dusting the snow off her clothes as she looked around her surroundings.

The cave was really a huge clearing surrounded by icy covered stone walls and piles of snow. There was a small creek of half frozen water running through it and if you craned your head and looked up you could still see a glimmer of sunlight. It was, Kaiya thought, almost perfect for two water benders who wanted to train without anyone noticing.

There was also a tunnel going off to one side. Kaiya turned and walked down there. She entered another clearing, this one a proper cave with a roof. Lying on the floor of the cave was a blue scaly creature.

Her blue scales rippled in the gloom of the cave and there were still droplets of water scattered about on her massive hide. She was 8 metres long from tip to tail and wide enough to have Kaiya lay across her back easily. Her face was of a noble and wise creature and her Amber eyes suggested this was more than just a common animal. Her snout was longish and she had blue feeler-type-things that stuck up into the air and rippled with an imaginary breeze just above her eyes.

"Suli" Kaiya called the water dragon gently "food"

The Water Dragon ambled over and nudged Kaiya with affection. Suli obviously loved Kaiya.

Kaiya reached into the bag slung around her shoulders and brought out the massive fish that she had caught yesterday. She offered the fish to Suli, who gobbled it up immediately pined for more. Kaiya reached into her bag three more times until Suli had had her fill. Then Kaiya sat down next to the fully fed Water Dragon, rubbing her soothingly on her huge head. Suli crooned with pleasure.

Kaiya had had Suli since she was 6. She had been practicing bending with her grandmother when she had head a pitiful wailing coming from behind a nearby iceberg. There was the tiny Water dragon, much to Kaiya's surprise. Water Dragons were unbelievably rare and hard to find. Most of them lived far further north than the northern water tribe could travel and if they did come this far south they stuck underwater and lived in secluded water caves. They were also very protective of their young, if this one was lost then the mother was never going to come back for it, only death would separate a mother from her baby for longer than a minute.

Shaiya had exclaimed when she bought the baby back with her, not many people had seen a grown water Dragon, let alone a baby. She agreed to keep the baby in the cave and Kaiya had christened her Suli after famous warrior maiden she had read about in one of Shaiya's books. From then on Suli and Kaiya were best friends and partners.

They sat there awhile, just staring into space, enjoying each other's company. Kaiya would yatter on about nothing in particular while Suli would grunt every so often in reply.

"Kaiya?" The hesitant voice could only belong to her grandmother.

"Coming!" Kaiya called to let her grandmother know she was there. She ran into the other cave, giving Suli an apologetic pat on the head as she left. Suli knew what it meant. Kaiya had to go now to practice Water Bending with her Grandmother.

* * *

Kaiya bowed to her Teacher respectively before the lesson started. Shaiya had already partly stripped off her clothes so they would not slow her down while they were practicing. She indicated that Kaiya do the same.

"We're doing some sparring today" Shaiya walked slowly to the opposite end of the clearing and faced her granddaughter. "Hit me with your best shot!"

Kaiya reacted immediately. She twisted in a circle using her hands to make the water twist around her. A huge water spout leapt up immediately and surrounded her, protecting her from any attacks that may come. Outside her spout she could see Shaiya, using her own bending moves to try and break into Kaiya's Spout. Kaiya grinned and ran forward, dragging her spout along the ground with her. Two seconds away from her grandmother she released the water from her twister, turning it into a giant wave which tumbled over her grandmother.

After the water subsided she ran over to the soaking wet old woman and helped her to her feet. Shaiya gave the girl a hug.

"You're getting really good" the grandmother remarked "I don't think I'll be able to keep up with you anymore"

Kaiya laughed "You're the master" she exclaimed "You're not supposed to let an apprentice like me get the better of you in the first place!"

Shaiya looked down, frowning. Kaiya waited patiently for her to think. At last Shaiya's head snapped back up. The old woman flung her arms wide open, revealing a shard of pointy ice she had hidden inside her sleeve.

"Think fast Kaiya" Her grandmother sent the shard flying towards her, the point spiralling menacingly through the air.

Kaiya instinctively reached for the ice in front of her, she didn't have to think. A tendril of water shot up like lightning and neatly sliced the ice shard in two. The water and ice fell to the ground slowly, instantly freezing in the cold again.

"Are you trying to kill me?" She asked in demand. "What did you think would happen?"

"Exactly that" Her grandmother said calmly "If you hadn't done that I would have diverted the ice so it would not have you, I knew I wouldn't need to though."

Kaiya's mouth dropped open "What on earth did that accomplish?"

"It was a test" Explained Shaiya as she took a seat on a lump of ice she had raised from the snow covered ground "You passed, You are now officially a water bending master"

Kaiya's mouth stayed open "Me? I'm 10! I can't be a master yet!"

"You can, and you are. There is no more that you can learn from me." Shaiya looked over at her granddaughter "Close your mouth dear, you're saliva's beginning to freeze."

Kaiya obeyed, wincing as the ice in her mouth made contact with the roof of her mouth.

"Brain freeze" she explained

Shaiya chuckled, She stood up and walked over to Kaiya. She laid a hand on her shoulder and sighed. "It's time to go or your mother will miss you, say goodbye to Suli and run back home" Shaiya smiled "You will be a great master Kaiya, one of the greatest perhaps." With that the old woman turned and walked out of the clearing, leaving Kaiya to her thoughts.

* * *

It was two months before Kaiya got used to the idea of being a master. Nothing really changed, she still went to practice with Shaiya and her mother had no Idea what on earth she was doing with her free time. Kouyo, of course knew everything. Kaiya couldn't keep secrets from her twin. There was nothing that Kouyo was learning, however, that Kaiya didn't already know.

"How can you become a master so fast?" Kouyo whined to her once "I'm the one getting the proper training!"

"So?" Kaiya wanted to know "I can still beat you in a match without even trying"

"It's not fair, it's like you were a master in another life and all you really needed to do was remind yourself of the techniques"

Kaiya thought about this "Maybe I was, it would explain a lot of things." Her eyes glazed over

"Like what?"

"Well, sometimes I know a new move already when Gran Gran was trying to teach me and when I tried it myself I didn't need to practise, I could already do it."

"Really?" Kouyo looked astonished "I was just joking you know"

"I know, but, something in that rings the truth. I even know complicated bending moves that Gran Gran doesn't know, like Mist bending. She can't teach me that but I taught myself to do it."

"How long did it take you to master?"

"About a week, Mist bending isn't hard."

"I don't start on mist bending for two more years!"

Kaiya shrugged and threw herself down on her bed.

"You're freaky. Do you know that?" Kouyo also flopped down on his bed on the other side of the room.

"It get's freakier." Kaiya murmured

"How?" Kouyo sat up, interested.

"Well, one time, I felt tremors in the ground that no one else did and there was that day when the air just randomly just kept stopping and starting around me. And there was this one time…"

"Yes?"

"I should have got burned."

"What did you do?"

"I reached too far in the fire, Ma screamed and pulled my hand out again but it wasn't harmed. Not even a slight burn."

"That is freaky"

"Yeah..." Kaiya agreed "I just don't know what happened."

"Well maybe you…"

"Kouyo! Kaiya!" They heard the call from their Mother from down the hall "Dinner!"

The twins rushed to obey.

* * *


	3. The cavern

__

Here's the next chapter, I'm really enjoying writing this story. It's fun to sort of carry on the Avatar story. Hope you guys are having as much fun reading it as I am writing it!

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 2

The next day was Sunday, the day when Kouyo didn't have any bending lessons and Kaiya didn't have any healing lessons or chores. Ma always let them run wild that day. They usually spent it with a group of other children from their neighbourhood. Kaiya got up really early and put her clothes on; Sundays only came once every 7 days so she had to make the most of it while it was here.

She padded down to the kitchen to see where Kouyo was, he was not in the jumble of messy sheets he called a bed so Kaiya assumed that her was already awake. She peered round the corner and into the kitchen. Kouyo and Ma were sitting around the dining room table, bowls of porridge in front of them both. Kouyo was obviously not hungry. He just stirred the lumpy grey matter around and around with his spoon, never raising it to his lips.

"Good Morning" Kaiya said brightly

Kouyo grunted, he was not really a morning person.

Ma indicated for her to sit with them, she got another bowl out and spooned some of the concoction in. Then she placed the entire thing in front of her daughter.

"Eat" Ma demanded

Kaiya obliged hesitantly, Ma was a dangerous cook, Mostly Kaiya's older sister Greta did the cooking. She tasted the first particle on the end of her spoon frowning. It tasted glue like, but edible, it could have used a little sweetener. She sighed and began to eat, it wasn't that bad when she didn't concentrate on what she was actually eating.

"I can't come today" Kouyo said suddenly "I have to go to an extra bending practice" he sounded sulky, like he had been cheated out of a bag of sweets.

"Why?" Kaiya asked, gulping a mouthful of porridge.

"Because he wants to be a great Water bender" Ma said forcefully "If he wants to become a great master he has to spend all of his time getting there, no one can do it without training everyday and spending 10 years or so learning. If he wants to get there soon he has to practice!" Ma stood and yanked the porridge bowl off the table; she turned around and walked over to the cooking fire. She put the pot back on to keep the porridge heated for when her other children come out for breakfast. She slowly stirred absentmindedly.

"You did it!" Kouyo whispered urgently as he leaned across the table "You have to help me! What did you do to become a master so fast?"

"I told you last night!" she hissed back across the table "I don't know!"

"Hmph" Kouyo sat back in his chair grumpily, he turned his head away. Kaiya took this as a 'I don't believe you and I'm ignoring you now.' She stood.

"Bye" she called to Ma and Kouyo as she sped out the door.

* * *

She gulped fresh air as she ran down the street. It had been stuffy in the kitchen. She ran through the city, dodging the early rising city folk as they went about their business. She kept running until she came to the town square. She took a seat on the high ice wall that was outside Water master Wong's house. This was their meeting place. Master Wong never minded, he was one of the friendlier masters. Kaiya perched herself up on the wall and waited. She watched all the shop keepers in the square setting up their carts and shops. She watched a mother chase her toddler across the square, shrieking at him to stop. She watched and waited.

The first person to appear was Rengy, she ginned at Kaiya as she heaved herself up onto the wall to wait with her. Next came Gengae, a plump boy who always seemed to worry about something. Then it was Dana and her little brother, Yaji. They were always bickering. After those two there was a flood of children arriving until there were 12 of them all lined up waiting on the wall. They all chattered and waited. Kaiya felt kind of lonely without Kouyo. They always came together or not at all. It wasn't only Kaiya that noticed Kouyo's absence either.

"Where's your brother?" Dana asked, concerned

"Couldn't come" Kaiya explained "he had extra water bending practice."

Dana nodded "It's so unfair that the boys are the only ones that can train." She said glumly. Like Kaiya, she was a Healer in training. It wasn't the most exciting water bending in the world.

"Tell me about it" Kaiya agreed "Other nations let girls fight, why not us?"

Both girls sighed in longing.

"Well? Are we going or not?" there was a sudden shout. Kaiya looked to see that it was Gengae. He was looking impatient.

"I think everyone's here." Said another kid "Let's go!"

* * *

The group surged forward and they were off. Kaiya walked beside Dana. The group walked to the edge of the city and crawled through a small hole in the city wall. They all ended up outside the city in the icy tundra. Slowly the children made their way over the ice against the howling wind and round into their Hang out.

It was another of the icy caverns. It was sheltered from the wind and could be easily seen from the city. The ocean was nearby and they could watch all the fishing boats as they sailed past doing their work. There were a dozen places to hide, little dark niches and huge rocks. Perfect for games of hide and seek. There was also a vast piece of flat terrain where it was common for a game of tag to break out randomly. It was the coolest kids hide out at the North Pole.

Today was no different from any other Sunday. Kaiya joined in with the other children, playing games of Tag, hide and seek. There were even a few snow fights. The longest was the boys vs. girls game. The water benders in each team were the best fighters. They made the snowballs make themselves from the snow on the ground and had uncanny aim. Kaiya was really good at this, she and Kouyo were the best benders in the group and because he wasn't there the girls won.

* * *

It was a pretty good day. They were lazing around just deciding to leave when they realized that all the fishing boats that normally swarmed around the cove were gone. It was really odd, the boats didn't go back to the city until sun set, which was still 2 or so hours away. Kaiya felt the hairs on her neck stand up on end. She shivered and stood up.

"I think we should go now guys." She suggested

There was a rumble of murmured agreement throughout the group. They all headed back up to the tundra on the higher ground above the cavern. Kaiya was last up the hill, helping the smaller children. Suddenly she heard the booming of drums in the distance. She watched the mist over the water. She watched, frozen, as a huge ship emerged. It had blood red sails and looked sinister. There were bits sticking out the side that Kaiya recognised as cannons. There was a mass of burly looking men standing on its dirty deck. They were all heavily armed and ruthless.

"Pirates!" she heard someone behind her scream. There was a mad panic as all her friends scrambled up the slippery slope. Kaiya couldn't move. She shook her head.

"Snap out of it Kaiya!" Dana shook Kaiya hard, Kaiya looked at her friend and saw that her eyes were wide and frightened. "We have to get out of here before..."

There was the sound of a cannon firing and the slope exploded in front of them. The Kids were cut off. The only way left was back down into the cavern where the pirates would surely catch them. Another Cannon ball exploded on the slope and the other kids decided that being caught was preferable to being blown to pieces. There was a mad rush down the hill. Dana tugged Kaiya along with her. They tore down the slope and into the cavern. They all huddled into the corner, they were trapped and they all knew it.

Thirty seconds later and a boat of pirates came chugging into sight. They sped up to the shore and stood in front of the children, leering horribly. One pirate stepped forward. He looked important; he was wearing slightly nicer clothes than the rest of them.

He cleared his throat noisily "Children, you can come quietly with us and nobody gets hurt _or_ we can kill you. Does that sound like a bargain?"

"Slavers." Kaiya heard the whisper going round. They were right, it looked like these pirates were looking for fresh children to sell on the slave market. She shut her eyes, this was not happening.

"What if we say no?" shouted one of the louder boys from the back.

"Then we kill you all." The slave-dealer raised an eyebrow "You cannot hope to fight us."

"Well," Dana stood up; shoulders back "Some of us are water benders." She assumed a bending stance and twirled her hand crudely. She tried to send a wave of water to knock the slave-dealers off their feet. The puddle of water in front of her quivered, rose into the air a couple of inches and then flopped to the ground again. Dana looked in despair at the water. She hadn't had any training in Bending, she just couldn't do it. The dealers smirked and stepped closer, greed shining in their eyes.

The closest pirate made a grab for Rangy, standing on the edge of their huddle. She screamed and all hell broke loose. Kids ran for it in all directions. It was everybody for themselves. Another pirate grabbed Dana, while another grabbed Gengae. Kaiya felt someone grab at her arm and she reacted instinctively. She forgot all about the fact that she had to keep her ability to water bend a secret and lashed out at the person behind her. She raised the water below him and froze him solid in an ice chunk. Another one made a grab for her and she used the ice on the walls to create a wave that washed him out to sea. All the kids had stopped struggling against the Slave-dealers and were watching her, open mouthed. The only people they had seen doing this kind of advanced bending were the masters. One by one the pirates tried to capture her, she ducked out of their way and water bended them into ice sculptors each time. After she had taken down 5 at once, the remaining ditched the children they were holding on to and charged for her, swords, daggers and other weapons out.

Kaiya called the water from the ocean and invited it to swirl around her. She turned on the spot and made the water raise her into the air. She bought tendrils up from the sides of her water spout and used them to lash out at the pirates.

They didn't stand a chance; they were all frozen in seconds.

Kaiya lowered herself to the ground slowly. She returned the water to the ocean and dusted off her jacket. She turned around into the eyes of 11 astonished children.

"Umm..." she said "I can explain?"

"You..." Dana cried "You're a water bender."

"Girls aren't allowed to be water benders" an accusing voice shot out from the group.

"I know…" Kaiya sat down hard on the ground. She rested her head in her hands. What had she done?

There was an awkward silence throughout the cavern. They all sat there shivering, saying nothing.

* * *

"HEY!" There was a yell from outside the Cavern. "HEY!"

"We're down here!" screamed one of the girls. "HELP!"

There was another yell from up above on the tundra and after a few moments a group of the city soldiers came in. They started as they saw the Slave-dealers, all still stuck in ice.

"What happened here?" the question came from the water bender at the front, obviously leading the group. He leaned closer to the children examined all of them, one by one. His eyes lingered on Kaiya, sitting at the opposite side of the cave because none of the others would go near her.

None of the children spoke.

"We saw the water bending from the town." The bender said "There's no denying it, that was the work of a master, or a very good apprentice. You kids must have seen the person that did it." He looked around each of the kids, frowning.

One of the little kids at the front burst into tears, the pressure had gotten to him. "It was her" he pointed to the other side of the cave, straight at Kaiya. "Kaiya did it!"

Everyone turned to Kaiya. She closed her eyes and cursed her stupidity. She felt a blush creep into her cheeks. Now she was going to be in so much trouble. More than anything she wished that she could melt into the wall and simply vanish.

"YOU?" The water bender snorted "a GIRL? A 10 YEAR OLD girl too. Like I'm going to believe that a 10 year old girl did this. We're going back to the masters. This is out of my hands." He turned to the men behind him "We'll take them up to the city; the masters will get the truth of what happened out of them."

The men started forward and helped the children to their feet. They then began to help the shell shocked and trembling children back up the destroyed slope. One of the braver men came over to Kaiya. She could tell that the men were afraid that she really was a master. It unnerved them.

* * *

It was a slow march back to the city. As they got closer and closer to the city Kaiya felt her stomach sink. What was going to happen now? If the Masters discovered that she was a proper water bender rather than a healer they would be furious. She just had to hold firm and not do any water bending, whatever happened. There was only the word of the other kids to prove that she was a bender. She just hoped that none of the masters actually believed them.

She carried on reassuring herself all the way to the city. Only once she passed through the gates and felt the stone sink further in her stomach did she realize that it wasn't working. She suppressed tears of fright and kept walking.

They kept marching until they reached the town square. It seemed that most of the city was there watching as the group of children came in. Kaiya could see her mother standing in the crowd with some of her siblings. At the front of the town square were the gates to the water bending academy. Outside the gates stood all of the water benders that had been in the academy when the news of the attack came. At the very back Kaiya could see Kouyo. From his pale face she gathered that with the news of a mysterious master fighting the Pirates off he had guessed immediately what had happened.

At the very front of the water benders stood the great master, Perrou. There were lines all down his face and his mouth was pinched together in a straight line. He had his arms folded in front of him and he looked down his nose as he surveyed the group. The men all fell away from the children and melted into the crowd. The water bender strode up to the front and gave his report to Master Perrou. The lines on Perrou's face got deeper and deeper as the report went on. The water bender had just told him that one of the children had said something about who had done the bending when he broke off.

"Well?" Perrou scowled at the bender "Who?" he sounded irritated and cross.

"Uhh…" The water bender obviously felt uncomfortable telling this part of the report. "umm…"

"Spit it out man!" Perrou roared

"They said… they said it was the girl," the water bender flushed

"What girl?!" Master Perrou said dangerously

"The one named Kaiya" The water bender clarified

"Impossible." Master Perrou said firmly. He peered down at Kaiya. "A 10 year old? What we all saw was the work of a master. And that's stupid, she's a girl, where would she have learnt to fight?"

The water bender cringed in embarrassment.

"Come!" Perrou said in a very commanding voice as he beckoned to Kaiya. "If you _are_ a bender we will find out" he turned and started back up the steps to the academy. Two of the water benders from his crowd came and stood next to Kaiya. They began to lead her up the steps, following Master Perrou.

"I can walk!" she told them angrily and pulled her arm away from one of their grips. She kept ahead of them, steadily climbing up the steps. She caught sight of Kouyo again; he was walking beside his teacher, not daring to turn around and look at his sister.

* * *

When they reached the top Kaiya was lead away into the building, to a huge practice room. There was an abundance of ice and water alike. There was a small lake in the centre of the room. It was to the edge of this lake she was taken.

The two benders left her and departed, working their way back into the crowd of water benders. Master Perrou stepped forward until he was standing opposite her.

"Well?" he snapped "Are you a 'master' water bender girl?"

Kaiya shook her head, saying nothing. She had decided that silence was best in the long run. That way nothing she said could be used against her.

Perrou raised an eyebrow. He flexed his hands and raised the water in the lake, calling it to him. He circled it around himself.

"So you can't water bend…" he contemplated

"Well…" Kaiya said "I can heal"

"Healer, so you could water bend… if you wanted to" Perrou clarified

Kaiya nodded again.

Master Perrou grinned and flung his hands up into the air. He bought them forward and sent a massive wave flying towards Kaiya. She crouched down into a ball and water bended the water over her head, leaving her dry.

"Ha! The Little girl has a few tricks!" Perrou sounded triumphant

"That's all she can do!" a desperate voice called out from the crowd

Everyone turned to look at the source. Kouyo turned bright red but carried on.

"She can only heal and do a few small things with water, that's it!"

"And you know this how, Boy?" Perrou inquired

"She's my twin" Kouyo explained "She can't keep anything from me"

Perrou sighed. He waved his hand at Kouyo, who walked back into the crowd.

"Very well" he said "She can go"

Kaiya couldn't believe her luck, they were letting her go? Just like that? She turned her back and started towards the exit. She wanted to go home.

The floor vibrated. For a second she sensed what was going on behind her back. She turned as fast a lightning and spread her palms up in front of her. Bringing them together and yanking them up she called to the water on the floor. It jumped up and neatly sliced the shard of ice that had been racing towards her in two. The water and the two pieces of ice fell to the ground with a clatter that was deafening in the silent hall.

Kaiya raised her hands and spread her feet into the water bending stance, ready for any other attacks that came her way.

Perrou was staring at her, his eyes bugging out in fury.

"LIAR!" he called

"Only a Master could have reacted that fast" someone murmured in the crowd

"LIAR! YOU ARE A BENDER!" Perrou screamed "YOU! A GIRL!" he emphasised all the syllables in his rage. "YOU DARE!"

Kaiya panicked. She had acted on reflex. She trembled at the rage of the elderly man.

"BENDER! YOU!" he carried on and on. Kaiya flinched with each word, as if they were needles being inserted into her skin.

"I…I'm..." Kaiya began

"ENOUGH! YOU ARE A DISGRACE!" Perrou interrupted her "YOU ARE BANISHED FROM THIS CITY! GO!"

"Master Perrou, you do not have the power to banish someone from here without a majority vote" a man from the edge of the group said. He was wearing the traditional clothes of someone from the water temples. Kaiya looked at the bottom of his robes. There was a white strip bordering the edge. This meant he was a high priest.

"ALL IN FAVOUR OF BANISHING KAIYA RUGGASSON!" Roared Perrou

Most of the hands went up, only a few stayed down, most of which were the hands of the water benders who had no say in things anyway. The High priest was one of those who did not raise his hand.

"KAIYA RUGGASSON IS BANISHED FROM THE NORTHERN WATER TRIBE CAPITAL AS A OFFICIAL MOTION FROM THE WATERBENDING COUNCIL" Perrou yelled "NOW GO AND-"

"Master Perrou this is not a fair sentence to place on a 10 year old" The high priest insisted "If we must banish her I suggest a sentence of 3, 4 years." He looked around the hall for support, a lot of water benders were nodding their heads.

"Very well" Perrou thundered "but she is banished for a total of 4 years, on her 14th birthday she may return and live among us again if she so wishes, but she will never be allowed to water bend in the city limits." he paused to glare at the high priest "she has to leave today, now, as soon as she packs, this is my final word on the subject." He spat on the ground in front of Kaiya and swept out of the hall. One by one all the water benders followed him. All except the High priest and Kouyo; who lingered with a look of pale shock on his face.

* * *

Kaiya fell to her knees in shock. How could this be happening to her? She shivered as the water on the ground seeped into her clothing. What was she going to do for 4 years? Sit outside the city limits twiddling her thumbs? She slipped further into shock; darkness crept in to her vision. She began to sob, tears streaming down her cheeks and mixing with the water on the floor. She gulped and shuddered. She felt furious. How could they do that to her? The ground rolled and shook, a miniature earthquake. Every candle in the room went out suddenly. She went blind and a roaring filled her ears. She blacked out.

* * *


	4. Kouyo

_This is the shortest chapter I've ever written. My apologies for that. But still, enjoy!_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 3

Kouyo cried out when every candle went out. He fell to his knees and yelled for Kaiya to stop, he didn't know how, but he knew that Kaiya was behind the earth tremors and the darkness.

"Kaiya!" he called "KAIYA!"

He felt a hand close around his arm; it was the priest that had spoken out for Kaiya. He tried to break free but the Priest's grasp was too strong.

"Get out of here!" The priest yelled "Run straight home!"

Kouyo looked at the priest with frightened eyes and ran out of the room. He felt like he was betraying his twin but had no other choice. There was nothing more he could do. He sprinted out the hall and down the steps, blood pounding in his ears as he sprinted. He hoped that the priest helped Kaiya. If he didn't, no one else would.

* * *


	5. Water Temple

_Sorry about the speed of chapters going on at the moment, I've got lots of end of year tests on at the moment so I really need to lay off the writing for a bit and get some school work done. Apologies for future delays on chapters, things will pick back up hopefully around next week or the week after!_

_Enjoy reading the new chapter!_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 4

Kaiya opened one eye sleepily. All she could see was a blurred outline of the room she was sleeping in. She closed her eyes tightly and contemplated on the dream she had just had.

"That was horrible" she said to herself. "I can't believe that I dreamed that I got banished from the city!" she chuckled sleepily at her own foolishness.

She sighed and slowly sat up. She needed to go down to help with breakfast, or there would be blood. She stretched and opened her eyes properly.

"Argh!" she screamed

This wasn't her bedroom. There was only one bed, not two and the window looked over a courtyard, not her back garden. There was blue cloth draped everywhere and a fine mirror in one corner, a wash basin in the other. At the opposite end of the room a fire crackled merrily in a small fireplace. Next to the fireplace was a chair which all her clothes were sitting in a neat bundle. Her bag was sitting on the floor next to it. At the very far corner of the room sat four, plump looking bags. Three of which, on closer inspection, held her own possessions from her bedroom and the other contained clothes and stuff she had never seen before.

She looked down at herself. Someone had undressed her; she was in her white undergarments. Kaiya sighed and walked over to the chair and started to put on her normal clothes, a traditional water tribe tunic with a split skirt and a pair of dark blue trousers underneath. The bottom and other edges of the tunic were trimmed with white fabric and it stopped just under the knee. She bent over and pulled on her black boots. On her arms went the pale blue fabric wrist guards she always wore.

She stood up and walked to the mirror. Looking at the reflection she made a face. All she could see was a scruffy dark haired 10 year old girl. Her eyes were Blue, but that was nothing new, she saw them every day when she looked at Kouyo. Her hair was a dark brown and it curled softly half way down her back. She watched herself in the mirror as she fashioned it in her usual style. Two braids curled in a loop to her forehead. She got the idea from a picture of the great water bender Katara she found in a book. Instead of the plain hair loops she braided them; Kaiya thought the effect was neater. She let the rest of her hair flow down her back. Last she fastened on the necklace she always had to wear and always resented it. It was an engagement necklace, pale green stone on a green band. It was crudely caved, a few wavy lines and a dot in the centre. She sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror again. She wasn't beautiful, but she would do.

She went and sat on her bed, wondering what she was supposed to do now. She sighed and lay back on the crumpled sheets. What had happened to her? Why was she here instead of home? It was all really strange. She couldn't remember anything from yesterday. It was all a blur.

She shut her eyes and thought harder about yesterday, something must have happened. She squeezed her eyelids harder.

Everything flashed before her, the slave-dealers, the frightened children, the Water bender and his report, Master Perrou's angry, angry face. Then anger and the ground bucked and knocked her over.

She began to shake. A sob burs out of her and she cried out in pain, she was banished from her own people. She was to leave and not return for at least four years. The ground beneath her started to shake.

The door to her bedroom burst open and a woman came in. She braved the rocking earth floor and staggered to Kaiya. Pulling the distraught girl into a tight hug, she crooned softly to her.

"Calm down, calm down." She whispered "you'll be ok"

Kaiya shuddered and felt the earth stop moving. She pulled away from the woman and wiped her tears away.

"Sorry" she muttered

"That's alright, pet" Said the woman "I'm Greta, by the way, I'm a high priestess here"

"Oh, like my sister…" Kaiya said a small smile on her face.

"Your sister is a high priestess?" the woman looked slightly baffled

"No, her name is Greta too" Kaiya explained

"Oh, that makes much more sense." Greta laughed; she stood up and walked to the door. "Come with me, the council wanted to see you as soon as you were awake, we have a few things to sort out"

Kaiya gulped and followed Greta; she had a sense of foreboding about this.

* * *

They walked through the corridors of the clean, white temple. Greta knew exactly where she was going but Kaiya got hopelessly lost after the second turn. At last they ended up outside a massive door. Greta nodded her head.

"Go in there, they are waiting for you" she said

"You're not coming in too?" Kaiya asked

Greta shook her head "I have other duties to do yet"

"Oh."

"Don't worry, you'll be fine." Greta reassured the slightly panicking Kaiya "They won't bite" Greta patted her head and walked away.

Kaiya walked to the huge door and placed her palm on the ornate designs. Her palm was sweating and her heart seemed to be beating so hard it could explode out of her chest at any moment. She gave the door a gentle shove; it smoothly swept open leaving Kaiya standing in the open doorway of one of the most interesting rooms she had ever been in.

It was mostly decked out in blue fabric, the stuff was everywhere. Like a plague it covered every motionless object in the room. Each cloth was edged in the finest embroideries money could buy. Ma had saved for months to buy a cloth like that to decorate the living room. There was a calm pond in the middle of the room and six men were sitting around this small pond. They had their heads bowed and were motionlessly staring down. Each of them wore the white trim on the bottom of their robes indicating that they were high priests.

There were no windows in this room; it was lit by strange white candles. Instead of an orange flame they emitted an eerie white flame. There were thousands of these candles up near the ceiling giving the illusion of a night's sky. To complete this image there was a huge silver orb hanging from the centre of the ceiling. This, Kaiya assumed, had to represent the moon.

"Come, Kaiya" one of the men had noticed her presence. He indicated to a blue cushion opposite all of the men on the other side of the pond. "Sit down"

Kaiya cautiously took a step further into the room. The Priest who had addressed her nodded encouragingly. Kaiya relaxed and kept walking across the room to the cushion. She knelt down and arranged her tunic so it was sitting right and then turned her attention to the six men in front of her.

"Kaiya, you are aware of the fact that you have been banished from the city for a total of four years?" One of the men began.

"Yes" her voice came out as a croak

"We would like you to tell us what happened yesterday with the pirates." One of the others continued.

"Um…" Kaiya began, she was nervous in front of all these important people. She didn't know where to start, at the beginning of her morning with Ma's lumpy porridge or at very end of the day when the pirates attacked. She decided on halfway in between.

"My friends and I have this place we hang out on Sundays, the day we all have free. It's a cavern just off the cove, about a 10 minute walk from the city's west wall. We go there and have fun…" Kaiya went on to tell them about how they had just been getting ready to go back to the city when the pirates struck. She described what happened and what she did to stop them. She then told of the men and the water bender who had come after and how they had lead them back to the city.

After she told them what happened in the training hall she gulped, and stopped. Looking down, she felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment. These people disapproved of women water benders too; they would not be very sympathetic to the unfairness of her banishment.

"We knew of your lessons with Shaiya Ruggasson" said one of the priests. "We have always kept an eye on you"

Kaiya looked startled, these people had known everything. Why hadn't they dobbed her and Gran Gran in?

"We think that the rule that woman are not allowed to be benders is unwise, history has told us that we need to be prepared for any threats to our nation, if that means training the women, so be it."

Kaiya knew her mouth was open and shut it quickly. "If you think that way why don't you help us?" she demanded.

The priest was already shaking his head. "We can't interfere; if we do it may result in chaos."

Kaiya opened her mouth to argue.

"We know, we want to do something too, but if we interfere it would be seen as a revolt to the chief of our tribe."

Kaiya looked down, put that way, it did make sense.

"We are not here to discuss why we do things, Pah." Another of the priests spoke to priest that had been talking.

Pah nodded, "yes, we are here to tell Kaiya about the water tribe Avatar."

"Really?" Kaiya asked "Why would you want to tell me something like that? It's not like it's anything to do with me, Right?" she gazed around the circle of men; they were all serous faced and watching her intently.

"To understand we must tell you everything, Kaiya, this may be a long story" Pah explained, he took a deep breath and began...


	6. Avatar

_I've been on a bit of a roll this week, I think if this carries on I may even get a couple more chapters on this weekend before I get another writer's block. Don't you just hate those things? Anyway, enjoy the chapter, even though it's quite short 'n' sweet._

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 5

The last Avatar was Avatar Jough, of the Air Nomads, he was a wise Avatar and the world was peaceful during his time. Some say that he was just a lucky Avatar, some say it's because he was still living under the respect that Avatar Aang had earned for his people.

However, no one can deny that Avatar Jough did a good job. It was a sad thing when he died, just over 10 years ago.

We got notified by the Monks of the Northern Air Temple soon after he died. We knew that his reborn spirit could be any one of the 29 children born in the water tribes about the time of his death; we had to test all of them.

A year after the Old Avatar's death we gather all the children in the city that were born around that time. To disguise the fact that we were searching for the avatar we had to also invite all the children in the city under the age of 5.

There were 27 children in this city that we suspected of being the avatar, two of the other candidates being born in the south. We decided to use the oldest and most effective test; the memory test.

We set out hundreds of items, all on tables where they could be easily seen. We gathered all the children and told them that they could pick any three items and keep them.

They were all thrilled; there was a mad rush to the tables as each child scrambled to get a new toy each.

We kept a close eye on the 27 kids that were possibilities. As each of those children came up with toys and shiny objects we began to despair. At last one of the boys came up with a brightly coloured, through battered ball, we were thrilled; the ball was an avatar relic. The boy was one of the 29 possibilities; we thought we had found the avatar. That was until another of the 29 children came up the other two relics, a toy white bear and a multicoloured woven bracelet. We watched in amazement as this child walked up to the boy and asked if she could have the ball in his hands. The child's mother scolded her for being rude but the boy handed over the ball with a shrug and ran off to a blue sled that no one had claimed yet.

We knew then that the child, the girl, was the one we were looking for. She was the avatar. We watched as her mother dragged her off, ranting that she had chosen badly and 'didn't she want a nice new ball instead of that crummy old one?' We watched as they walked over to her siblings, the other children teased her but she stood by her choices. We knew then that she really was the Avatar. Any other child would have given in and gone to get other things.

We took careful note of her identity and kept tabs on her over the past years. We knew that come her sixteenth birthday we would have to tell her of her true status.

Then yesterday, something happened to disrupt our plans. Those pirates attacked. This caused a chain of events beyond our control and thus we are telling you this story.

I can tell you are confused Kaiya, you don't see the connection with you at the moment. That girl was you, this story is yours. It is your future to travel around the world and master each of the four elements, this is your destiny. Granted, this day has come a little sooner than we thought, we really have no choice but to tell you this now, we don't want anything to happen to you while you are away.

You are the Avatar, Kaiya.


	7. Proof

_I told you guys I might just be on a roll! enjoy!_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 6

Kaiya looked round the circle, her mouth hanging wide open. Each face she looked at in turn was deadly serious, this was no joke.

"I..." Kaiya started. She looked down. What do you say in reply to that particular bombshell? "I'm really the avatar?" she asked

Pah nodded, "you chose the three avatar relics, there is no doubt."

"But I'm a _girl_" Kaiya insisted "I'm not even allowed to learn water bending!"

"There have been many women Avatars in the past, Avatar Kyoshi of the earth kingdom, Avatar Shinko of the fire nation and Avatar Naru was of the water tribe..." Pah said.

"yes, but she was of the _southern_ water tribe" Kaiya sighed "there have been no past women Avatars of the _northern_ water tribe"

"Maybe it's about time we had one."Pah countered.

"Avatar Naru had the support of her entire tribe against the masters up here; I've just been banished by MY tribe. She was 15 when she told, though her tribe helped her by keeping it secret until she was 16. I'm 10, I don't see anyone here bending over backwards to help me keep it secret until I'm 16."

"...And how do you know about Avatar Naru finding out her status early? It was a secret, remember?" Pah leaned forward and raised an eyebrow, waiting to see how she would get out of this one.

"I... Uh... read it in a book once?" Kaiya said sheepishly.

Pah just looked at her.

"Fine, I just know, O.k.?" she sighed exasperatedly and leaned back "Just like I know that Avatar Jough's favourite food was flour noodles and Avatar Roku loved to play Pai sho. Same way I know Avatar Kyoshi had big feet and Avatar Aang invented the Air scooter technique. I just know ok?!"

Now the priests looked among themselves, trading startled looks. The only one that didn't look unnerved was Pah, he was looking at her in a knowing way that somehow annoyed her more.

"Now do you believe us?" he asked gently.

Kaiya looked down and nodded softly, there was really no other explanation for the things she knew, the things she could do.

"Will you allow us to help you?" Pah continued.

Kaiya nodded again.

"You have to learn each of the elements in the order of the avatar cycle, first earth, then fire and last air. We will set you up with plans for each element; we will even set you up with earth kingdom clothes for the first part of your journey. We recommend that you go to the earth temple in Omashu, they have excellent master earth benders there. Next it would be good to go to the fire nation mixed academy; we will set you up with a place. And last it would be best to go to the southern air temple. All the temples are mixed now and the northern and eastern temples are not quite back on their feet yet. We will have to tell the masters of that particular temple of your identity, there is no other way to get into an air nomad temple."

Kaiya sat up, head reeling. Was this how people's fates were decided? It seemed really fast to her, in a few short minutes her life for the next four years was decided. Just like that.

"Uh... ok..." Kaiya said.

"We need to set you up with some means of travel..." Pah paused, thinking.

"I have means of travel." Kaiya said "I can get to the earth kingdom easy," she paused "I'll need a map though" she added as an afterthought.

Pah looked at her "We didn't know you owned a boat." He said after awhile.

"I don't" Kaiya explained "I'll take Suli"

"Who is Suli?" Pah wanted to know.

"She's my water dragon" Kaiya explained "I found her when I was 6 years old."

This time Kaiya was pleased to see an impressed look flit across the High priest's face.

"You have a water dragon?" Pah asked, mouth agape.

"Yes, Suli was orphaned when she was small, I took care of her." Kaiya shrugged "She's a great friend."

"Well then, I suppose you should take your water dragon to the earth kingdom," Pah seemed to have recovered from his initial shock, he stood and walked to the door, the other priests close behind. "You should get ready; you need to leave as soon as possible." Pah swept out, leaving Kaiya alone with her thoughts.


	8. You Can't keep things from me

_Yayz! It's almost the start of the Christmas holidays! I've finished my ballet recital and I only have three more days of school to endure. I decided that there was no better way to celebrate than to put another chapter up, now that I have more time on my hands, so to speak. Anyways, enjoy!_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 7

Kouyo looked at the front door to the water temple. It was beautifully carved, telling the stories of his people all over its surface. It really was a fantastic door.

_No point in putting this off, _Kouyo told himself, _she's leaving whether you say goodbye or not, may as well get the last word in._

He gently pushed at the door and watched as it creaked gently open to reveal the splendour of the temple inside. Polished silver disks and freaky blue candles, this place had always scared him slightly. Kouyo walked further in, testing the ground almost as if he expected it to fall out from beneath his feet.

"Hello?" he called out, voice slightly shaky.

"You must be Kouyo," A large cheerful looking woman had come round the corner; she was wearing the robes of a woman who had devoted herself to the ocean and moon spirits. "Come in dear, my name is Greta; I'm to take you to your sister."

Kouyo stepped further in, looking around.

"Yeah," he said at last "I'm Kouyo."

The woman nodded and turned, Kouyo followed her as they darted in and around the confusing passage ways and through several courtyards. Finally they came to a small room at the back of the temple.

"Kaiya is leaving this afternoon," Greta told him. "You are welcome to stay until she leaves."

Kouyo nodded his acknowledgement and lifted up his hand to knock on the plain wooden door.

Greta winked at him and turned, walking swiftly down the corridor and out of sight.

Kouyo tapped the door gently with his knuckles. The sound echoed around the passage and dissipated into the stone around him, making him wince. It was so quiet here; it made him feel like an intruder.

The door slowly creaked open, a pale face, framed by two braids hanging in loops to the back of the girl's head. It was a mirror of his own face, just with longer hair.

"Kouyo?" His twin whispered. She looked at him in slight disbelief. "I didn't think Ma would let you come."

"Technically, she thinks I'm at extra bending practice" Kouyo smiled wryly "I think I can afford to miss practice, I'm already top of my age group."

Kaiya raised an eyebrow, looking at him evilly.

"I mean, I'm top of the _boys_ my age" Kouyo corrected quickly.

Kaiya burst out laughing at the worried look on her brothers face. "Don't worry Kouyo, girls don't count." Try as he might Kouyo couldn't deny there was a bitter edge in Kaiya's voice, "Come in, Kouyo." She opened the door to her tiny bedroom, standing aside to let him pass.

She offered him a seat on the small bed, he sat down and there was an awkward silence as both of them tried to think of what to say. What do you say to your twin you know you won't see again until you were both 14?

Kouyo looked at his twin. Would he even see her again? There were thousands of stories of people who were banished and never came back, they got lost, or they got killed, or captured, or liked the outside so much they never wanted to come back. Was this going to happen to Kaiya?

"I'll be ok," Kaiya whispered. She had read his thoughts. Again.

"It's not you I'm worried about" Kouyo tried his hand at humour "It's the poor sucker who thinks he can rob you,"

"You think I'm going to get robbed?" Kaiya's voice was amused, once again she knew what he was thinking and was playing along to help him feel better.

"No. Have the poor sucker doing what you like; he's still a poor sucker if he thinks he can take you down" Kouyo laughed "Beware world, here comes Kaiya the invincible"

Kaiya laughed and swatted at the side of his head.

"I'm not quite invincible yet" she murmured

"You're a master in water, how much more skilled do you want to be?" Kouyo joked.

Kaiya mumbled something unintelligible and looked away.

"Huh?" Kouyo looked at his sister, really looked, for the first time since he had arrived. She was hiding her face and looking to the ground. He hadn't noticed before but she had spoken carefully, with a hint of stress evident in her voice. This meant only one thing.

Kaiya was hiding something from him.

"What is it?" Kouyo asked gently "You know you can't keep things from me, so spit it out."

Kaiya sighed, "I... I don't think... I'm not sure I can tell you..."

"What?" Kouyo suddenly realized how big this secret was, it was bigger than all the trouble making she had ever done, it was bigger than her secret water bending lessons. What could be bigger than that?

"I'm sorry" Kaiya whispered.

Kouyo looked down, she didn't trust him enough. If she didn't trust her twin, who did she trust?

Kaiya looked at him thoughtfully. Kouyo wondered what must be going through her head. She looked nervous.

Suddenly she leapt to her feet and bounded to the door. She slowly poked her head out and nervously turned to side to side. Once she was satisfied that no one was listening in she shut the door softly, but firmly and ran back to the bed where Kouyo sat.

Then she turned back to her brother, a fierce light now in her eyes.

"You have to swear you will never tell anyone what I am about to tell you" she whispered urgently. She held out her hand in front of her. "Twin pact" she whispered.

Kouyo held out his hand, mirroring Kaiya. He wondered what this was all about; she looked really worried about something.

"I swear on our lives that I will never repeat what is being said in this room, ever." Kouyo said solemnly. The twin Pact was their own version of an oath. It was never enough just to swear on your own life, you have to swear on the other half of your life too; your twin.

They grabbed each other's hands twisting their fingers together and up. This was the final sealing act; Kouyo was now bound to never repeat what has been said.

He looked at his twin expectantly.

"Kouyo, what do you remember about the Avatar?" Kaiya whispered, forcing the words out as if in pain.

"Just the stuff we learnt in school, avatar cycle, blah, blah, blah. The old one died twelve years ago right? And the next avatar will be water tribe right?" Kouyo tried in vain to recall more about it, but it was Kaiya that was fascinated by history. He always got her to do their history projects.

"Yeah..." Kaiya sighed "The Avatar died ten years ago though."

"Oh... I always get that one wrong anyway" Kouyo sighed

"The Avatar died ten years ago, three days after midwinter..." Kaiya continued

That struck a nerve with Kouyo. "_The Avatar died on our birthday?!"_ he asked incredulous.

Kaiya just nodded.

"But that would mean..." Kouyo pieced the information she had given him together "One of us could be the Avatar!"

"Yeah... ONE of us" said Kaiya gloomily "I'd rather it was you any day, you'd do a far better job at it anyway."

"Rather it was me? What?" Kouyo grasped at the meaning behind Kaiya's words "Kaiya?!"

Kaiya looked away. "It's me Kouyo, they just told me. I'm the Avatar, That's why I knew all that stuff about water bending; I've learnt it all before, hundreds of times."

Kouyo just stared at his sister, mouth wide open with shock. _Kaiya is the Avatar?_ He thought. He examined her face carefully for a hint of a smile that would have betrayed the joke. Kaiya face was quivering, _There, I knew it was a joke!_ Kouyo thought.

He waited for the laughter to start.

"_Man, Kouyo, you are just too gullible!" Kaiya shrieked, she burst into hysterical laughter, clutching her sides to restrain her laughter. "You really thought I was the Avatar didn't you?" she doubled over, gasping for breath. "Gotcha! Gotcha good Kouyo!" _

She didn't laugh though.

Kouyo watched, horrified as a single tear dripped down her golden brown cheek. _She's serious._ He thought, _my baby sister is the Avatar._

The tears thickened until Kaiya was sobbing uncontrollably, clutching at her sides as if they hurt. Kouyo quickly sidled over to her and placed his arm around her, hugging her tight.

She howled as he hugged her, making shushing noises in comfort.

"I don't wanna leave!" she wailed "I don't want to go off and learn more difficult stuff, I want to stay here and hang out with you and have snow fights and..." she collapsed into sobs which shook her entire frame.

"Kaiya, it's ok." Kouyo attempted to cheer her up.

"_How is this ok?"_

"The fact that you are the Avatar makes no difference to the course of events now." Kouyo said "Perrou would have still banished you; the difference now is that you can do something useful in the time you are away."

Kaiya sniffed and rubbed her face, blotting away the remainder of tears. She sat up slightly straighter and pulled out of Kouyo's grip.

"I guess you're right" she admitted grudgingly.

"Aren't I always?" Kouyo's mouth twisted upwards into a wry grin.

Kaiya's hand whipped up and smacked him precisely on the centre of his head.

"Ow!" Kouyo jumped back, rubbing his head.

Kaiya muttered something that sounded a lot like, "Shame... Don't mess with the Avatar."

"What was that?" Kouyo asked.

"Nothing"

Kouyo rolled his eyes at his sister.

"How about we don't talk about that right now, you have to go away soon. I want to spend the time without you bursting into tears if you please."

Kaiya laughed at him.

"Come on" she said, nudging him gently. "I'll show you the weird as outfit I have to wear once I get to the earth Kingdom."

* * *

_Tell me what you think, I hope I'm still pleasing you guys out there! Reviews are always welcome and they only take a minute. (Hint, Hint)_

_; )_


	9. Departure

_I haven't been able to get to the computer for a while, my big brother has this habit of getting on in the morning before I wake up and staying on for the rest of the day. I've had to resort to using paper and... and... and pencils... it's terrifying! NOOOOOOO!_

_Anyways... enjoy the chapter, even though its kinda short. The next one will be longer promise._

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 8

They spent the rest of the day like that, having fun and laughing. Neither of them wanted to mention anything about Kaiya's banishment or her status.

Reality caught up with them at 2 o'clock.

"Kaiya?" Greta called round the door of her room.

Kaiya stiffened.

"Are you nearly ready to go? High priest Pah wants for you to leave around 3 o'clock..."

"Uh... yeah" Kaiya replied shakily. "Leaving... 3 o'clock... got it."

"Alright then, just bring your bags to the east courtyard when you're ready." Greta smiled at the two children and left.

Kaiya turned back to Kouyo, his face was grim.

"What now?" he whispered

"I have to go." Kaiya said simply. There was no other way to say it, that was the truth.

She knew she had shocked Kouyo with her acceptance of the problem, He always believed there were at least two choices.

She watched as his cheeks turned pink. He puffed out his face in an exasperated expression and frowned. She grabbed his arm gently.

"There is nothing in the world that will stop me from going Kouyo." She whispered softly. "This destiny was set in motion for me ages ago, maybe when the pirates cornered us, maybe as soon as Gran started teaching me, maybe when I was born. I'm the Avatar; I'd have to go away sooner or later."

Kouyo raised an eyebrow "what a different attitude to this morning" he commented.

"I think it's better if I just accept that I'm leaving" Kaiya sat up and trained her bright blue eyes onto her brother.

"Come on then..." Kouyo stood and walked to the bags sitting in a lumpy pile at the back of her room.

Kaiya sighed and drifted over to Kouyo. She picked up the green singlet top lying on the floor and sniffed it. She screwed up her nose, it smelt of something weird.

_Pine._ Something inside of her answered. _and jasmine oil_. What was jasmine oil anyway? No one she knew had ever talked about something as weird as that.

"Kaiya?" Kouyo waved a hand in front of her face. "Wakey, wakey"

"Huh?" Kaiya jolted out of her half trance.

"You know... packing? What we were doing three minutes ago? You may remember."

"Oh, sorry" Kaiya sat down next to Kouyo on the ground and carefully tucked the singlet into one of the bags.

"There." Kouyo said "all done"

Kaiya just looked at him. "Since when were you all neat and tidy?" she asked leaning forward on her elbows. "What happened to 'my room gets clean over my dead body'?"

"Uh... that's just to annoy Greta" Kouyo laughed

"Whatever, Let's go. They'll be waiting for us." Kaiya stood out, stretching out her legs.

"Waiting for you, you mean. It makes no difference whether I'm there or not really."

Kaiya hugged her brother around the shoulders and squeezed gently. "It matters to _me_ if you're there" she told him.

Kouyo picked up two of Kaiya's small bags and started walking to the door; he nudged it open with his foot and stepped out into the hallway. Kaiya picked up the last two bags and hurried after him. Like it or not, Kouyo was leaving without her.

* * *

It was all set; Suli was in the courtyard, all of the packs tucked securely into her brand new saddle she had been given by the water temple priests. Kaiya patted Suli softly on the head, listening to the water dragon croon quietly.

"Are you ready Kaiya?" Pah asked

Kaiya nodded without turning around. "I'm ready"

She patted Suli once more and climbed into the massive saddle. She settled down into a cross legged position, holding the reins limply in her hands. She scanned the small group of people crowded around. There was high priest Pah, and high priestess Greta. The rest of the faces blurred together in her head. She hadn't been here really long enough to get to know anyone else.

"You'll be ok" Kouyo patted her hand reassuringly

"Are you sure?" Kaiya joked "There are a million things that could happen to a girl travelling alone, robbers, bandits, kidnappers, the list is endless."

"Haven't we been over this already?" Kouyo grinned "what will you do if confronted with any of those people?"

"Blast 'em sky high" Kaiya laughed "Provided I have enough water around"

"Yeah, that's sort of why I want to give you this," Kouyo stretched out his hands. He was holding a bright blue bag with a black strap hanging out both ends. It was patterned with a flowing and swirling white design that twisted around the whole thing.

"It's a water bag" Kouyo explained "there isn't water on the ground everywhere in the world like there is here. This is so you can carry some water everywhere you go; say if you find yourself in a dessert or something."

Kaiya took hold of it stared, it really was a pretty thing. She tucked it into one of her bags for later use, she wouldn't need it here but she might soon.

Kouyo reached up to clasp her hand tightly; he twisted both their hands together and up.

"We _will_ see each other again, in four years time" he whispered fiercely. He yanked his hand free and stepped back and away from the water dragon and her rider.

Kaiya nodded to all the people around her. She patted the top of Suli's head and whispered in her ear. White mist began to billow around the water dragon, thickening and spreading until a neat little cloud covered most of Suli's blue scales. The soft, white cloud then began to gently rise, lifting mysteriously up to the sky.

Kaiya looked down, catching the bright blue eyes of her twin brother. She willed the moment to last forever. She fixed the image permanently in her mind.

The small ten year old boy in a shabby water tribe tunic. There was white trim on the sleeves, neck and bottom. He was also wearing dark blue pants under that ended mid calf where his scuffed black boots began. His mid neck length hair was hanging loose, two strands of hair hanging beside his face, blue beads threaded amongst the dark strands.

She blinked, the image stored firmly inside her head.

Then it was gone, and there were only swirling white clouds left for company.


	10. Dirt

_I don't think this is my best ever chapter, but I couldn't think of a better way to write this, hope it's ok._

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 9

There was really only one thing to say about long journeys on water dragon back. _Dead boring,_ Kaiya thought. Nothing had happened in the past few days except swirling white clouds, glimpses of endless ocean and the occasional ice berg, though those had gotten rarer over time as they headed further south. They hadn't stopped to make camp last night, no point. Suli didn't need to sleep as much as the lazy humans did. Kaiya hoped to see land later today. That would mean a more comfortable campsite than a random unstable ice berg.

At the moment though, she'd be lucky to get one of those.

Kaiya sighed and rolled over onto her stomach, stretching out her legs until they lay across the saddle.

On the bright side, she had the water in the bag Kouyo gave her to amuse her. That was something. The only thing was, there were only so many times you could freeze and unfreeze water before it gets boring too.

She glanced over at the bag sitting at the back of the saddle. Nah, she didn't feel like water bending now.

_What to do, what to do. _She thought. She tapped her fingers on one of the bags slowly. She looked more closely at the bag. It was the one containing all the stuff she would need for the earth kingdom.

"Might as well take a look" she muttered, undoing the shiny silver clasp on the rough brown bag.

There was the stuff she had seen before, clothes, combs, and money, all in the earth kingdom green. She dived a bit deeper, coming up with more and more interesting items. Scrolls and writing equipment, a better set of clothes and a motley collection of pots and pans. Well two, a pot and a pan. But there was a bowl, a cup and a spoon in the ever present green colour too.

"Well, would you look at that Suli?" Kaiya murmured to the water dragon. "Stuff."

She reached for the scrolls and writing kit.

"What do you suppose is in these, girl?" Kaiya asked, more to herself than the water dragon.

She balanced the nearest on her lap and broke the red wax sealing the parchment shut tight.

She examined the ink writing closely. She peered from the text on the left to the carefully drawn diagrams on the right.

"They're earth bending forms!" Kaiya suddenly realized. She traced the arrows on the diagrams, showing the direction of the forms. "I don't have to wait until I get to the earth kingdom to start! This is so awesome!" she grinned to herself, pleased with her discovery. "I should start trying some of these right away."

There was a silence as Kaiya realised what she just said.

"Uh... I should start trying some of these as soon as we find some earth." She rephrased.

She leaned over the side, peering through the clouds to the sea below.

_Again, nothing but salt water. Not even ice anymore._ She thought gloomily.

* * *

It was a few hours later that Kaiya saw the island. It was barely more than a brown and white blob floating in the sea. Its features yet still undefined. As they got closer the land marks got sharper, revealing hard unforgiving coastline and a barren mainland. There seemed to be a small stream, however, and a few trees. It looked deserted, not even an animal in sight.

It was the perfect place to stay for the night.

Kaiya carefully manuvered Suli down onto the island, careful not to smash any of the poor trees. It took a while to make camp, Kaiya had never done it all by herself before. Greta, or her Ma, and Kouyo were always there to help her. It got done though.

She didn't realize she was crying until it was all set up.

Kaiya angrily wiped the tears away. Now was no time for it, she wanted to get something constructive done.

She eyed the ground of her campsite. It was smooth brown dirt.

"Stand back Suli" Kaiya said "this could get dirty, dirty... get it. Because I'm bending dirt!"

Suli tipped her head to the side, wondering what was wrong with her human.

Kaiya shook her head from side to side. "I really need to hold off on the bad jokes, don't I girl?" she ran over and daintily patted her dragon on the snout.

"Well..." Kaiya turned back round to the pounded earth. "The scroll said to have a solid stance" she thought out loud, "so I should probably do that first."

She spread her feet wide, planting them firmly into the dirt. She bent her knees until her butt was almost as the knees themselves and she bunched her fists bringing them firmly to her sides, next to her hips. She stood like that for a minute.

"Right... now what?" she questioned the sky. "Am I supposed to just...? I dunno... stomp and a neat little bolder comes out of the ground?"

She stomped her foot experimentally.

Nothing happened.

"Urgh" Kaiya flopped to the ground "what does the stupid scroll say?" she picked herself off the ground and stumbled over to her bags, now slightly emptier now that the camping stuff was out. She picked up the scroll and examined the first drawing, tracing the directional arrows over and over.

"You know Suli," she said finally "That actually makes sense."

She discarded the scroll and walked back over to her patch of dirt. Resuming her stance, she frowned in concentration, eyebrows coming neatly together with an almost audible click.

Following the sequence she had just studied, she breathed deep, almost putting her into a half trance of sheer concentration. After a few second she lifted one of her legs and smashed it down onto the hardened soil. A huge clump of dirt exploded out of the ground and hovered into the air.

Kaiya spluttered and gasped.

"It worked." She whispered, dumbfounded. "It actually happened, like, for real." She stared at the huge lump of dirt just hovering in the air.

She sat down hard, her lump of dirt collapsing as she did so. Before this whole 'earth bending' thing had almost been a joke. She'd only half believed that it would actually happen. But there was the proof right there, she was Definitely the avatar. Only the avatar could bend more than one element.

Well, now she knew that the water priests were right she'd better work hard. Kaiya got up and dusted the stray lumps of dirt off her tunic.

She resumed her stance and breathed deep. She stamped her foot once again. The lump of dirt lifted back off the ground, trailing loose pieces.

"That won't do, back into a single lump thank you." Kaiya scolded the rock. She mulled over another of the simple moves explained on the parchment, Compression. Maybe that would work.

She lifted her hands, palm up, until they were level with her chest. She then clenched her hands again, straining them into a fist. Slowly and shakily the stray pieces wobbled back to their original positions. Kaiya grinned, so far, so good.

What was another of the movements? Right. Moving a rock, she had defiantly seen that one. Kaiya lined up her fists in front of her face. Breathing deep, she concentrated on the rock.

Striking suddenly she thrust her right forearm and fist forward, a movement which almost seemed as if she was going to try and push the dirt away from her.

The rock exploded.

"Crap"

Kaiya looked around disappointedly at the mass of rocky lumps now spread all over her campsite. She absentmindedly picked a couple out of her, now dusty, hair while she thought.

_Maybe I better go look it up in the scroll again; maybe I accidently did an exploding move by accident._

The scroll didn't help much. The move was clearly labelled with plenty of arrows and description seemed simple. It wasn't until the end that Kaiya realized what she did wrong.

"Did you know you had to use your feet too Suli?" Kaiya informed her spectator "Fancy that, using your feet in earth bending is actually quite essential." She chucked the scroll down once again.

Summoning a new rock was easy; soon she was ready for another try.

"Right. I have to step forward and thrust my arm forward at the same time," Kaiya reminded herself "step and thrust, step and thrust."

She stepped forward and flung her arm forward once again. This time the rock wobbled a bit, and moved a few centimetres back.

"Not good enough Kaiya," Kaiya grunted "you can do much better than this."

She stepped forward again... and again. Nothing happened.

"Crap, crap" Kaiya kneaded her forehead. "Right, what did it say? Key to this move is to be firm, stubborn. Like a rock."

She breathed deep. Feeling the energy run through her muscles. It was hungry, it wanted a way out. It wanted to crush, push, pull her. She pushed down with her will, it screamed defiance. Channelling into her right arm and leg, Kaiya felt its power. She turned her gaze to the rock in front of her. She thrust forward with her right arm and leg.

_Move_

The rock creaked and shot across the clearing, slamming into the sheer cliff at the other end and disintegrating.

Kaiya stared at the destroyed bolder for a few seconds, savouring her triumph. She turned to her audience.

"Did you see that girl?" Kaiya danced over to the water dragon and tapped her happily on the snout. "I made a rock move! It was so different to water, more solid, you know. Oh that was brilliant!" She twirled in a circle around the calm and practical creature. "I'm a real earth bender now! One that can make rock actually moves by itself! Well not by itself, I made it move really. I really made a _rock _move by itself! This is so cool! Am I using too many exclamation marks?!" Kaiya flopped down in front of the baffled creature, breathing deep. The dragon regarded her with golden, no nonsense eyes. The girl sighed and rolled back onto the balls of her feet and stood.

"You're right Suli; it's too early to brag yet. I have to practice more." Kaiya sighed and returned to the now more familiar earth bending stance.

For the next hour happy shrieks of joy could be heard all over the tiny island as the avatar played with her rocks. Massive dust clouds blew up into the wind and thousands of rock shards were often seen to be exploding into the air.

It was only after she had succeeded in destroying the rocky patch she had been standing on that she decided to fall, happy, into her old seal fur lined sleeping bag, still drunk with silliness.


	11. Arrival

_This is the last chapter I'm putting on today, I've gone a bit nuts, writing so much, think of it as a Christmas gift... It is Christmas Eve after all, well... where I am anyway. I can't say the same about you. If you don't live in New Zealand (like Me!) you really should consider moving here, we do get Christmas first after all (And the Boxing day sales!). well, Merry Christmas! Maybe a happy new year as well, I'm going on holiday for two weeks after Christmas so I probably won't be able to write any more for a little while. _

_Anyways... enjoy the chapter!_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 10

She hadn't stayed on her little island long. The next morning she was up and away on Suli again, she had to keep moving if she wanted to get to Omashu any time soon.

This time she wasn't as bored, she had found a good collection of rocks on the island and now she spent her time improving her power over the rock. She could keep herself occupied for hours by teaching herself to hover rocks in mid air. It was more fun than hovering water in the air for the hundredth time.

Soon she was good at that too. Once she had mastered the one stone she tried to hover two at the same time. After that she tried to juggle them. That kept her occupied for a few more days; it was much harder to control them when they were moving. Suli must have sore spots all over her skin where Kaiya had lost control and the rocks had gone flying. She had lost quite a few over the side as well.

Needless to say, she was sufficiently amused by the time she made it to Omashu.

About 1 km from the great city she and Suli had to stop. It was time for Kaiya to say goodbye to her friend. It was kind of a big giveaway that she came from the water tribes if she arrived on a great big water dragon. She'd never be able to lie about her heritage if Suli was around. They had found a big cave next to a lake not far from Omashu. There were plenty of fish for the water dragon to eat and plenty of water for the dragon to swim around in. The cave was hidden and practically sitting in the water so they didn't have to worry about concealment. Besides, Suli was an intelligent creature. If someone came along she would find somewhere safe to hide.

Kaiya opened her earth kingdom bag. There was plenty of stuff in there, a writing kit, clothes and a few possessions. It all seemed to belong to a typical earth kingdom girl. There was even some earth kingdom face paints. Looking though all the stuff properly for the first time made her wonder. Where did the Water Tribe priests get all this anyway?

It was time; she had to disguise herself as one of the earth kingdom now. She stared in distaste at the green, brown and cream items. Any second now. Any time now she would put those clothes on. She screwed up her face.

Suli nudged her in the back and gave her a meaningful look.

Kaiya sighed and turn back to the clothes. She picked out the first thing she saw. She dressed quickly; pairing up the items in what she thought looked an earth-kingdomy way.

She walked slowly over to the lake. She flexed her hands and snapped them open again sharply, freezing a small part of the water and raising it to stand opposite her. As she had found years before, the smooth surface of the ice made an excellent makeshift mirror.

Examining her appearance now a she had to admit she didn't look too bad. She had put on a white singlet and knee length skirt in a light shade of green. There was a cream trimming on the clothing to stop it from looking too boring. Over top of the t-shirt she was wearing a short sleeved loose jacket made of thin cotton. It was a dark green, barely above black. She wore a pair of leggings the exact same hue under her skirt. On her feet went brown sandals.

She didn't look too bad really.

There were a few things that still on her which screamed of water tribe though. She touched her necklace. She would have to take that off, she realized with a thrill. She turned her gaze to her hair, her soft, brown, shiny hair. It was still done up in her water tribe braids in loops. That would have to come down too.

She turned back to the earth kingdom bag. Rooting around for a few seconds she uncovered a small bag containing some green beads and a green velvet band, silky to the touch. She quickly undid her two braids and let them fall loose. Swiftly she pulled the loose hair to the back of her head, securing the hair with the green band. She let the beads drop gently back into the bag. She wasn't sure what she wanted to do with them yet, maybe it was best to keep her hair simple for the time being.

She gently took the necklace off and tucked it into her earth kingdom bag. Her Mama had said she had to keep it close to her at all times.

Lastly she transferred all her essential belongings into the earth kingdom bag. It all fit snugly in, she didn't have much stuff to begin with. After a moment she added one of her water tribe tunics to the bag. She wanted to take something that reminded her of home with her.

That was it. She was all set.

_Now for the hard bit_ she thought to herself, _I have to walk all the way to Omashu, mostly uphill, and convince total strangers that I'm an earth bender. And if I fail the whole world will now that I'm the avatar. No pressure._

She heaved her heavy bag onto her shoulders. She thanked the spirits that water bending training required her to be fit, fast and nimble. If she hadn't been in good physical shape this trip would be a total nightmare. Staggering under the weight she thought again. Water bending was about using your opponent's strength against them. Building up strength wasn't really something you concentrated on.

This might be slightly harder than she thought.

Somehow she managed to get moving, shoving one foot ahead of the other. She found her way to the road and started on her way to Omashu.

* * *

It was luck really, some random old guy just happened to be on his way to Omashu as well. He had a huge cart filled to the brim with his fresh produce. He took one look at the ten year old girl heaving a heavy pack down the road and had to ask.

"Are you going to Omashu little one?" the man sounded like someone's kind old grandfather. Kaiya made a face. She hadn't been a 'little one' since her eighth birthday.

"Yes" Kaiya told him, shading her eyes against the harsh midday sun as she looked up at him. "I'm to learn earth bending at the earth temple there."

"Well, it wouldn't be right for me to leave a little girl alone on her way to Omashu, even if you are an earth bender. That Pack does look heavy." The man smiled at her. "Do you want a lift into the city? I can take you to the market square; it's easy to find your way to the temple from there."

"That would be wonderful" Kaiya sighed in relief.

"Climb into the back then" the old man gestured to the back of the cart.

She trudged to the back of the cart and threw her bag in. Then she heaved herself up, tucking herself into a corner of the cart.

"Careful of my cabbages!" the man's voice got squeakier "my cabbages! My cabbages!"

"They're ok" Kaiya called to the distraught man. "I'll be careful back here."

"You'd better be." The man muttered as he nudged the ostrich horse forward.

* * *

_Yay! Don't you just love the Cabbage guy? I reincarnated him here; this cabbage man is the like great great great grandson of the Cabbage man in Avatar the last air bender. He's carrying on the family business! Anyway, have a very merry Christmas!_

; )


	12. The Omashu Earth Temple

_Well, I hate writer's block. I must have deleted so much crap this last month or so. But this chapter seems acceptable so I'm going to post it and let you guys be the jugde of that. I'm very sorry this chapter took so long to put up. I've been busy with the start of the school year and holidays and stuff. I joined the school sailing team, and that's taken a chunk of of my time too. Oh well, enjoy the chapter. _

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 11

Kaiya looked on, her eyes wide, as she drank in everything around her. Here were hundreds of people, all going on their daily lives as if this place was perfectly ordinary. She paused. Well, this place was perfectly ordinary, to them at least. _Was this how earth subjects lived all the time?_ wondered Kaiya.

She stepped forward into the street out of the cart. No one spared her a second glance. _And why should they?_ Kaiya told herself, _you look exactly like one of them._

She still wasn't used to the knee length skirt in earth kingdom green, the white cotton singlet and green short sleeved jacket feel normal either. What was the strangest however were the brown leather sandals fastened firmly onto her feet. They felt bizarre after the fur lined, seal skin boots she had been wearing all her life.

It was just strange.

Kaiya sighed and looked up the street, shading her eyes against the sun. She scanned all the buildings and faces, hoping for a sign that the earth temple was nearby.

There. Pushing though the crowd was a man in the long green robes that indicated he had dedicated his life to the earth sprits. Kaiya quickly picked up her bag and raced after him, dancing and darting between the crowd.

It was difficult to catch up to him, the bag was still as heavy as ever and she was tired.

"Excuse me" Kaiya bowed respectfully to the earth Dedicate, clutching her side as she breathed heavily.

"What is it child?" The earth dedicate seemed almost amused at this child who was addressing him.

"I'm looking for the earth temple school" Kaiya explained "I need to study bending there."

"Do you?" the Dedicate's face brightened "We always welcome new earth benders, follow me; I'll take you there."

Kaiya sighed as she fell in step with the father. All her worries that the school was full, or they wouldn't believe that she was from the earth kingdom seemed for nothing.

"Do you have a name?"The dedicate asked suddenly.

"Kaiya Ruggason" she replied, looking up at the Dedicate. She watched as he started to frown in puzzlement.

"Isn't that a water tribe name?"He asked, eyes curious.

"Yes, it is." Kaiya said, racking her brains for a suitable story, "My Parents travelled a lot, they were staying in the northern water tribe when I was born. My mother decided to give me a water tribe name"

The Dedicate nodded, it seemed that he believed her story.

"Have you learnt much bending already?" The Dedicate wanted to know.

"Not much" admitted Kaiya "I haven't even really learnt the basics." She made a face.

"That's not a problem, we sometimes get adults who are total beginners!" the Dedicate laughed.

Kaiya breathed deeply, she was afraid she was too old to be taught.

They kept walking in silence. Kaiya was getting more and more nervous by the second. She felt uncomfortable lying to these people. It went against all she was taught.

_It's not really lying_, Kaiya told herself, _I was born in the northern water tribe. I just neglected to mention it was because my parents were from the northern water tribe._

* * *

She watched as the Dedicate walked to an earth brown door, he slid it across and turned to the side, indicating for her to enter.

Kaiya gulped and stepped past the Dedicate into the temple, into the place where she would be spending the next year or so of her life.

The temple was unlike anything she had ever seen, unlike the temples at home it was constructed out of sturdy rock and decorative patterns were pressed into the hard earth everywhere. There was also a lot of green cloth draping over everything.

And this was just the first room.

She was taken to a different room almost immediately after she had arrived. There she was left, bags and all. After a little while the Earth dedicate had come back, towing another dedicate with the markings on his robe indicating he was an Avatar level master. Behind him walked a boy Kaiya estimated to be about her own age.

"This is the head Dedicate Earthwave" explained the earth dedicate that had bought her here. "I am Dedicate Groundwater."

"I'm Lee, the one who was kinda enjoying history class until I was yanked out to come here." The boy waved jauntily from behind the Head Dedicate.

"Weren't you sitting at the back, not paying any attention to the teacher at all and shooting rocks at all the other students." Dedicate Earthwave said wryly.

"Exactly, that's why I was enjoying it!"

"Really" Groundwater muttered under his breath.

"Now," Earthwave turned his attention to Kaiya now. "What do we have here?"

"I am Kaiya Ruggason," she replied nervously. "I'm here to learn how to earth bend."

"Really?" Lee seemed interested now.

"No," Kaiya said, watching Lee's face fall, "of course I am, would I be here if I didn't?"

"Oh," the boy seemed slightly subdued now. "Of course,"

"How much do you know Kaiya?" Earthwave asked.

"Not much. Just the small things, e.g. moving a rock." Kaiya said quickly. "On anything more difficult than that I'm a total beginner."

"That's Fine," Groundwater said, "why don't you show us?"

Kaiya looked around the wide room, noting the hard packed earth floor with interest.

"What? In here?"

"Yes, in here." Groundwater said patiently, "this is one of our smaller training rooms."

"Oh," it was Kaiya's turn to be subdued now. "Well, ok then"

She stomped her foot on the ground, hard. She thanked the spirits she'd thought to practice before she arrived. A small boulder rose shakily in the air, with a note of pride she noticed it didn't shake as much as it did last time she had practiced. She had got better.

The boy, Lee, looked unimpressed though. He was now leaning against the far wall, juggling some stones jauntily.

Kaiya gritted her teeth and bought her fist snapping forward, like she meant to punch the rock. The bolder shot forward and slammed into the far wall hard enough to take a decent chuck out.

Kaiya didn't even think he was still watching.

She realized that the chunk in the wall was probably not a good thing. There were crinkles in the brow of the head dedicate.

"I'm so sorry." Kaiya apologised. "I'm still pretty new at this, here; I'll try and fix it."

She stared in concentration at the wall, she easily identified the pieces that belonged in the wall, they were a slightly redder brown colour.

She stomped her foot, forcing her will onto the wall fragments. They all hovered into the air. Kaiya breathed and slid her foot forward. This wasn't a bending move but she instinctively knew what to do. It was almost like it was in her blood.

The pieces of earth started to move slowly back to the wall, fitting themselves back together like a jigsaw puzzle. Last, Kaiya brought her palms together and then pushed them out. The pieces contracted, forming into a solid rock again. This done the rock drifted back into the wall and settled back into its former place. Kaiya flexed her fingers and the rock expanded a hair, sealing it into the wall once more.

She turned back to the Dedicates and Lee.

They were staring at her blankly.

"How... How did you _do_ that?" Lee came up to her.

"Earth bending, I presume. I mean, I was moving rock." Kaiya scratched her head. What was the big deal?

"That was a piece of advanced earth bending," Lee explained, awe in his voice. "I don't start on that stuff for ages yet. It's almost as advanced as metal bending."

"Really?" Kaiya asked "cool"

"Cool? Cool?! Is that all you can say? You're lying to us." Lee said

"I am?" Kaiya felt her stomach drop, she wished she had paid better attention in Drama class now.

"You're a master earth bender, aren't you?" Lee said

"No." Kaiya said

"She's not lying" Earthwave said. "I would have felt it."

"She's not?" Groundwater sounded dumbfounded.

"Yes, she truly believes that she is not a master earth bender." Earthwave said firmly.

"So we teach her?" Groundwater asked

"Yes"

"And what of the advanced earth bending she did?" Lee asked.

"It did not happen, I mended the wall." Earthwave said simply. He swept out of the training room before anyone could answer.

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeell" Lee rocked back and forward on his heels.

"Well?" Kaiya asked

"You know the drill Lee, Find her a room. You'll be tutoring her." Groundwater left before the boy could protest.

Lee stretched out a hand to the departing dedicate, opening his mouth to complain.

Kaiya cleared her throat.

"Well?" she repeated.

Lee sighed in defeat and waved his hand at her. "Come with me." He left the room out of a side door, different to the one the Dedicates had taken.

Kaiya hurried after him, she didn't want to get lost in this giant slab of earth.


	13. A New Home

_So, I thought it was time for another chapter. Even though it's really short. I can't wait to hear what you guys think of it, so please R&R! _

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 12

The temple was a rabbit warren of corridors and dead ends. Kaiya was instantly thankful for her guide. Even though he did seem a bit wary of her. He was slightly weirded out and she didn't blame him. If she were him, she'd be weirded out too.

"So..." Kaiya began.

"So..." Lee imitated her.

"Where are we?" Kaiya asked.

"We are in the student wing of the temple." Lee explained. "This is where all the temple students live."

"No Duh." Kaiya muttered. "Who would have guessed that the Temple students live in the student wing?"

"Don't mock the master" Lee warned her.

"I thought you were a student too." Kaiya said.

"I am, but I'm also a junior master. That means I'm not that much higher ranked in skill than a good apprentice but still..." Lee trailed off.

"Are you the usual at this place?" Kaiya wanted to know.

"No, didn't you hear Master Earthwave before? I flick rocks at people, they get annoyed so I get kicked out of class and shoved into babysitting duty."

"Baby? I'm ten!" Kaiya cried.

"So am I. Look we have similarities already. Let's be friends." Lee spread a goofy smile on his face.

Kaiya couldn't help it, she laughed.

"Deal" she agreed.

Lee looked at her and the out stretched hand she offered, he looked startled. Slowly but surely he grasped her hand in a quick shake and then released it again, turning back to the corridor.

"There are a few things you need to know about this place." He began. "Girls and boys aren't usually friends." He shot a nervous look in her direction as if he was scared she would take back her friendship now she knew this. "We have a strict social system here; you better know straight off, I'm not cool. We all live together here for most of the year; those with families can go home during the holidays, those that don't: like me,"

"And me," Kaiya cut in.

"... Get to stay here all year round." Lee continued. "With me so far?"

"Yup, you're a trouble maker who is not cool, probably mocked by the other students here because you're a master at earth bending already."

Lee just looked at her blankly. "Right..." he said slowly "Well... breakfast is at half past seven every morning, morning lessons start at eight thirty and run until Lunch. After that earth bending lessons run until four. It's a gruelling schedule, but you'll get used to it. After four your time is your own, unless you get a detention for flicking rocks at people in history class," Lee grinned evilly, "or if you're in a study group or a tutor group. Which you are, I'm assigned to be your guide and earth bending tutor until you have caught up to the other kids. Questions?"

"Uh, where do I sleep?" She asked.

"Here, the girls section." Lee had finally stopped walking outside of a room in one long corridor decorated with flowers. He pushed open the door and motioned for her to take a look.

Kaiya stepped into her new room.

It was quite simple in design, one bed, a window, a door, a wash basin in one corner and a desk in the other. There was a simple, but comfortable looking chair situated behind this desk and a dark stained wardrobe and chest. The chest was set right at the foot of her bed. Last there were three different lamps settled in various spots in the room and a bigger one sitting on the small bookshelf next to her bed.

It was simple, but she liked it.

"Well, just put your stuff in here..." Lee was leaning against the door frame, watching her examine her new quarters. "...Then I can take you to get your school stuff."

"School stuff?" Kaiya asked

"Yeah, books and stuff. Have you got a writing kit?"

"Yeah, it's a bit shabby though." Kaiya dug in one of her bags, looking for the Kit.

"That's ok, mine's so shabby that the brushes have practically no hairs left." Lee grinned. "My mum has barely enough money to stay alive, there is no extra for me to get new brushes."

"At least your mum would support you, if she could." Kaiya said gloomily.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"My Ma and the rest of my town cast me out, banished me." Kaiya turned away, she knew she might start crying soon and didn't want this boy to see her.

"That's rough," Lee said. "Why did they do that?"

"Let's go get that school stuff," Kaiya said quickly, changing the subject. She pushed past Lee and into the corridor. She looked left and right. _Darn, I've completely forgotten how I got here._ She turned back to Lee, pulling a face.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to here in no time, soon you'll know this place like the back of your hand." Lee smiled reassuringly at her.

You know what annoyed her most? He was right.


	14. Sniffles

_Sorry guys for my two month absence, I was banned from the computer because all the internet time was used up. I know, sucky, but my parents needed someone to blame and I like watching avatar on the internet._

_To stop the story getting to long I've decided I'm not going to write about every single little thing that happens while she is at the earth temple. Instead I'll have lots of little stories of what happened while she was learning earth bending. Main points mostly, I think. Besides, I don't think I could make up a whole year; I just don't have that many ideas!_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 13

Lee was right, about a lot of things. He wasn't cool, Kaiya didn't care. She liked him. If she didn't her tutor lessons would be unbearable.

She did know the place like the back of her hand; it only took her a month.

The schedule was tough, but she got used to it. Over time her body strengthened and the timetable now seemed almost second nature to her.

He warned her that earth bending would be hard at first, she didn't really believe him, her lessons on the island were simple enough. Again, he was right. She completely lacked the muscle that earth benders needed to move something as stubborn as rock, she had to do push up and crunches and lift weights and run. A lot.

Lee had also told her that eventually her body would grow more muscle and she would get stronger. He was right. Again.

There was one thing he wasn't right about.

"It will take you years to master earth bending, it doesn't happen that quickly. This takes time."

He was wrong.

Kaiya was moving rocks confidently within two lessons. In the third lesson she inhumanly quickly caught onto the idea about splitting rocks into pieces. Within another two she could accurately chop solid boulders into tiny pieces from ten metres away.

She made more progress in the first week than most people made in a month. She could tell it unnerved him.

He soon became her best friend though, he was funny and she found that she was a more carefree person than she had been in the north. It may have something to do with the fact that she was equal to the boys here. If one of the more jerky boys annoyed her no one blamed her if she chucked a giant bolder at him, it was the usual at this place.

Her favourite parts of every day had to be the earth bending training. It was fun to only have a couple hours of school and then just play around with dirt for the remainder of the day. After four every day she had her private lessons with Lee to help her catch up and they were helping heaps.

"You should teach earth bending when you grow up," she told Lee once. "You're really good at it."

Lee had just laughed at her and continued to throw random rocks at her.

There was one dark thought in the back of her mind that whole first month though.

She was lying to them.

She wasn't an earth kingdom girl, even though she looked and acted like one. She was Water tribe and proud of it.

She used to get her water tribe tunic out at night, once everyone had gone to bed. She locked the door and put it on. She always thought of Kouyo when she did this. Wondering what he was doing at that exact moment. She always ended these little 'thinking of home' sessions with bending the water in her wash basin to keep her skills sharp.

Lee was so nice to her. They were hanging out in the market one day, she was feeling home sick, she wished that she could at least write to Kouyo, that would at least ease the sting that they couldn't see each other for four years.

She had told Lee that she had a twin brother named Kouyo, he sensed not to ask much about him, Kaiya was relived, she didn't really want to lie to Lee even more than she had to.

They were walking through the local market that day, it was a massive market. Even in four trips Kaiya hadn't seen all that it had.

"Come on." Lee pulled her arm towards a corner she hadn't seen yet.

"Ok" Kaiya sped up to match Lee's quick walking.

It was one of the more interesting alleys of the market she had seen. There were a hundred birds in cages perched in one stall, bags of seed on the one next door. There were dogs of every shape and size and a few baby lion bird. And they were just the animals she recognised.

"Welcome to the animal market, any pet you want or need is right here at you're disposal." Lee spread his arms wide. "Come over here, there's a stall I want to show you."

He grabbed her and pulled her over to the stall stuffed with bird cages. There were all sorts here, including a lot of cross breeds. Monkey birds and salmon parrots. There were also a few sparowkeets in small cage to the side.

Lee greeted the stall owner enthusiastically, jabbering on about new imports and stock, Kaiya looked over the colourful birds impatiently. She didn't know that Lee was interested in Birds. Somehow, she didn't see the earth bender keeping creatures of the air.

"Kaiya?" Lee called out, he was now behind the stall, looking at a massive stack of cages. These looked like slightly more important birds, their feathers were glossy and well groomed. There was more room in the cages and the water and food dishes were full.

"What?" Kaiya walked round to stand next to Lee and the Stall keeper.

Lee pointed to a small section of birds at the back. "I was talking to Dusan here; he sells birds here for all kinds of purposes..."

"If you hadn't told me I might never have known." Kaiya muttered, eyeing the hundreds of birds on display.

"... most of these are for pets, but some of the better trained ones are messenger birds." Lee paused and looked at her. Kaiya Knew where this was going, he was trying to help her reach Kouyo. It made her want to cry.

"Yeah, but don't messenger birds have to know where they're going? As in, they had to live in the place they have to go to?" Kaiya willed herself not to cry, it was sweet of Lee to help her, but she just didn't see it happening.

"That would be true of a normal messenger bird," Dusan said. "We have a special breed here, They're called the sniffer-bird." He walked around to the right side of the pile of cages and picked up a cage.

Kaiya leaned forward to get a closer look at the animal in the cage. It wasn't a pretty bird, but nor was it ugly. Its feathers were boring brown, dirt colour, though they were glossy and shiny. Its eyes were sharp and relatively intelligent. The defining feature however was its beak. The huge beak was the length of the whole bird; it was a miracle it managed to hold it up. As well as a huge beak the nose holes in the beak were massive, the largest she had ever seen. They may have been even bigger than two human noses put together.

"It smells the people it's delivering the letter to, instead of seeking out the place where the person _might _be. All you have to do to train it to a certain person is put something that smells of that person and say their name. Once they are attuned to both your smell and theirs you can send letters to a person no matter where they are on the planet." Dusan looked triumphant as he explained.

Kaiya was speechless; here was a way to send letters to home, right there in front of her. She still had Kouyo's water bag in her things. That would smell of him surely.

"How much?" she asked the stall keeper.

"Twenty gold coins" He said instantly.

Kaiya bit her lip. That was a lot of money just for a bird.

"She'll give you ten." Lee said firmly

"Ten? Are you mad, this is a special breed!" Dusan insisted.

"I can pay fifteen" Kaiya said, "It's all I've got" that was bending the truth slightly. It was all she had in her purse at the moment. She had a hundred gold coins at home that she had been given by the water tribe priests.

"Well, fifteen is ok." The stall keeper looked slightly put out.

"It's all my money, I don't have any more." Kaiya said, making her voice seem sad. "I really need this bird mister, my twin lives far away and I can't see him for another four years because I'm banished. It would be nice to hear from him, I really miss him desperately."

Dusan looked like he was feeling a mixture of sadness, pity and concern. Kaiya could tell his heart was twisting for her story.

"Ten it is," He decided. "And I'll throw in some bird seed for free."

"Oh thank you sir!" Kaiya made her voice much happier as she reached for her purse. She fished around and bought out ten shiny gold coins. These she handed to the Stall keeper. Then she reached for the cage. Dusan handed it to her, still clutching his payment in one hand. He also handed her a sack of brown seed. Lee started to walk away from the stall, Kaiya followed him, a huge grin plastered on her face.

"Have a good day!" Dusan yelled after them.

They walked a few minutes in silence, not even the bird squawked.

"That was shameless." Lee said softly. "You totally made his heart bleed."

"I needed this bird." Kaiya shrugged.

"If he dies of a heart attack we know who to frame for murder. You weakened his heart Kaiya, did you know that? He'll never be the same again." Lee nudged her. "What are you gonna call the little squawker then?"

"Sniffles" Kaiya said promptly. "I think it's appropriate."

Lee just laughed at her.

* * *

She had to sneak out at that night to go see Suli anyway so she took Sniffles along so she could train him to the scent of her brother.

She brought Suli some fish she had bought at the market when Lee wasn't looking. She was all set for her weekly visit to her water dragon.

It took half an hour give or take to run all the way to the hiding place she had left Suli in. It felt nice to run to actually go somewhere instead of running to train.

Boy was Suli glad to see her. She erupted from the lake, spraying water everywhere. The water dragon galloped full speed over to Kaiya and then licked her from head to toe with her long, thin tongue.

Kaiya chucked her the fish first, laughing and then ducked into the cave where she had hidden her things. In one corner she found the water bag. She sniffed it slowly. It smelled of salt and had a bitter wet smell clinging to it. There was also the sweet smell of purely Kouyo still hanging around. It would be perfect for training Sniffles.

She had already trained the bird to her scent. She and Lee had tried him out from all over the city. He always found her, no matter where she went.

She carried the water bag back to the clearing where Suli and Sniffles were waiting. Suli was sniffing the cage of the brown bird while Sniffles smelled the giant dragon.

"Come on." Kaiya picked up the cage, smiling at the bird inside. "It's time to get to know Kouyo." She carried the cage over to the cave where the water bag was. She picked it up and offered it to the bird to smell.

Sniffles breathed deep, sucking in the smell of her brother.

Kaiya looked him firmly in the eye. "Kouyo." She said, "Kouyo."

Sniffles cocked his head.

Kaiya offered the water bag for him to smell again.

"Kouyo," she repeated.

Sniffles shrieked and unfurled his wings; Kaiya took this to mean he understood.

She opened the cage and reached inside for him, he climbed onto her arm, claws biting into her fingers.

Kaiya gently tied the letter she had written a few hours before onto his leg tightly, she didn't want it to fall off as he flew over the ocean. She really hoped this worked, if not, she had just wasted ten gold coins.

"Go to Kouyo," She told the bird. "Take the letter to Kouyo." She said it slowly, catching the bird's eye. "Now go to Kouyo" she raised her arm, feeling Sniffles scratching her arm as he took off.

She watched as he soared away. He was heading north by the looks of things, this, Kaiya decided, was a good sign.

She sighed and started to pack up, putting the cage in a corner of the cave and returning the water bag to its former place. At last she gave a farewell pat to Suli before she started running back to the earth temple.


	15. Meanwhile

_Hey my loyal fans! I'm really sorry for the lack of material over the last while. I've been very, very busy with winter sport, homework and reading. It also didn't help that I went away to Italy midyear. That was awesome, I love my parents. But now I'm back and into the writing groove! Hope you love the new chapter, It's fantastic (maybe ( : ). Please read and review!_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 14

It had been a rough night; first he didn't get back until late because of water bending training, Master Perrou had been in a foul mood and made them drill the water whip move for three hours straight. Then his mum had been in a foul mood when he came home because he was late for dinner and it had ended up a shrivelled dehydrated heap in the bottom of the pot.

Now he had been woken up in the middle of the night by something scratching at the shutters in his room.

Hang on. Kouyo sat bolt upright in bed and listened more closely. There was something scratching at his shutters. He ripped off his heavy blankets and padded over to his window. Before yanking open the window he collected some ice from around the room, as insurance. He didn't want to be caught by surprise from say, a lion seal.

Mentally preparing himself, he opened the shutters slowly and peered outside. He was prepared to be attacked by a vicious lion seal, not a bird.

He threw his hands back to protect his face, forgetting about the ice he had collected earlier. He tripped over the heavy fur rug on the floor and went flying, arms flailing. The bird screeched and spread its wings, cawing again and again. Kouyo stopped worrying about the stupid bird in his bedroom and started worrying more about his mother's wrath if she woke up.

"Shhh!" he begged the bird desperately "SHHH!"

To his amazement the bird complied, shutting its beak firmly and looking at him intelligently. It cocked its head and held out his leg to the startled boy.

Kouyo crept closer to get a better look at the strange bird with the huge beak. He peered at the offered leg. Tied to it was a small roll of parchment in a water proof pouch. He gently untied the leather strand tying the pouch to the bird and slipped the parchment out.

_Who would be writing to me?_ He thought as he unrolled the thick paper. _Is this even _for_ me?_

He walked over to the desk and lit the lamp. He didn't want to wait for first light to read this letter.

Once the small flame was up and running he spread the parchment out on his desk. Instantly, recognising the messy calligraphy, he gasped.

"Kaiya." He whispered.

* * *

_Dear Kouyo_

_I really hope the person reading this is Kouyo, otherwise I just wasted good money on this messenger bird. If you are Kouyo : YAY, this crazy scheme actually worked. If you aren't, but know who Kouyo Ruggason is, can you please take this to him? Including the bird if you please. If you have no idea who Kouyo is please tell Sniffles (that's the bird's name) to 'go back to Kaiya'. _

_Kouyo._

_I have missed you so much. I'm here and fully established in the place we talked about. I can't really give you many details, at least in this letter because I'm still not entirely convinced that this feather duster will actually make it to the North Pole, let alone sniff you out. _

_That's how sniffles found you, by the way. I used the water bag you gave me to teach Sniffles your scent. If you could better familiarise him with your scent that would be awesome. All you need to do is give him something that smells like you and keep saying Kouyo over and over, he should get the idea. One of your stinky shirts should do. To send a letter back to me just put your letter in the letter pouch and tie it to Sniffle's leg then once it's really, really secure tell him to 'go to Kaiya' really firmly looking directly into his eyes. He'll find his way back to me._

_I've made some new friends here, my best friend, Lee, is tutoring me until I catch up to the other children. He seems a bit shocked that I learn so quickly and he's a bit of a dip stick but he's great. We have a lot of fun. We played a prank on snooty Sara the other day, it was great. You so should have seen her face as a ton of water cascaded down upon her head! I may have just helped the water find it's target a little, but don't worry. No one saw me. Not even Lee, who was standing right next to me. The real shame is here she was ok in a couple of seconds, at the north pole it would have frozen around her feet and locked her in place for the next hour. Before you ask, she's a nasty person. She hates us and never finds it to tiring to torment us about not having parents... or Money. Both Lee and I do have parents, mine have just banished me and his Mother lives in a town far to the south, after his father died she couldn't support him anymore. He has lived here since he was five years old!_

_I really miss you; people here don't see me as one of the twins. They see me as an unremarkable little girl. I miss all the fun we got up to at home. I miss snow ball fights in the back yard, heck, I even miss SNOW!_

_Well, I really hope this got to you bro, _

_Your twin sister_

_Kaiya_

* * *

Kouyo straightened up, a new light in his eye. _This letter is from Kaiya_ he thought. _She's ok, she got there safely._ Relief made his legs wobble.

She managed to get a letter to him! They weren't able to talk face to face for the next four years but they could at least communicate. He wanted to dance around his bedroom but again, the thumping might wake up his Ma.

Ditto for screaming in joy.

After awhile he realized he was just standing around grinning stupidly, clutching the letter tightly in his hand. He shook his head to tip out the fuzziness and got to work.

First he walked over to his washing basket where he picked up a couple of his stinky shirts. He had to hold his nose, he had worn them to water bending practice and they were covered in sweat.

"If that doesn't familiarize 'sniffles' with my scent, nothing will." He said wryly.

He offered the shirts to the strange brown bird, who breathed in deep, familiarizing himself with the scent of the garments.

"Kouyo." Kouyo said, hoping he sounded firm. "Kouyo."

The bird shrieked and head butted him.

"That's right. Kouyo." He continued.

Sniffles cocked his head.

He dumped the shirts in front of the bird; it seemed the creature had the idea.

Next he sat down at the small table, groping about in the bad light for his writing kit. Finding it, he opened the small wooden box and picked up one of his best brushes and a bottle of ink. It was only half full, he had knocked it over in class just the other week.

He drew out a piece of the thick parchment that was common and cheap in the water tribes. He tapped his chin with the end of the brush. _What to write, what to write._ He thought. _Start with the basics. Family and what has happened, hopefully it won't be so short I have to add mushy stuff at the end._ He made a face, dipped the brush in the ink and began to write.


	16. Letters

_Man guys, It's been a scary weekend. I live in Christchurch, New Zealand, and we just had a massive as earthquake yesterday. I had to survive without the computer yesterday (gasp! I know, it was horrible) and as a thanksgiving for the fact that while there was a lot of damage in Christchurch, the only things broken in my house was my brother's lava lamp, my mother's great aunt's doll and a few other bits and bobs. Our chimney is not looking too great either at the moment but at least it hasn't fallen down, yet. Down the street from us a water pipe burst through the ground and is now spurting a 3, 4 metre jet of water all over someone's house. We are also _**still** _getting aftershocks, it's unnerving. Yet, amongst all this madness I managed to get a chapter of my brilliant fanfic to you, so please read and review, I need some good news right now!  
_

_; )_

* * *

Chapter 15 

Life was pretty sweet from then on. Well, as sweet as living in the middle of the earth kingdom could be, while pretending everything was perfectly ordinary.

She'd almost got caught out a couple of times.

The first was in the middle of earth bending practice with Lee, it was only the third week so Lee still didn't know her that well.

"Right, so, you need to use these movements." He swished his hands forward in a slicing movement downwards. His stance didn't waver and, sure enough, the giant bolder sitting in front of him split neatly into three even pieces. "See?"

"Yeah... so... it's similar to the water slice." Kaiya said without thinking.

"Huh?" Lee looked at her strangely. "The water slice? Is that water bending move or something?" His eyebrows snapped together in a look of puzzlement. "How do you know about water bending?"

Kaiya felt her cheeks flush and she turned away from her new friend. _YOU IDIOT!_ She yelled at herself mentally. _How could you compare it to water bending! IDIOT! IDIOT! IDIOT!_

"Uh..." she muttered "Never mind. Is it like this?" she swung her arms, wind milling them around and slicing downwards. The rock split messily into three pieces.

"Yeah." Lee blinked, distracted. "You need to keep your hands together more, and your chi needs to be channelled more. You need to want this to be as exact as possible."

Kaiya sighed and concentrated on the rock more. _Disaster averted._ She blew a wisp of hair off her face and tried the earth bending again.

* * *

There were only a couple of times after that that she messed up. The next worse was the day after she sent Sniffles to Kouyo for the first time, just after she had been there a month and a half.

Kaiya fingered the green silkiness of a tunic hanging on a rack. She looked up and down the most popular clothes ally of the market and rolled her eyes.

"Don't people here use any other colour apart from green?" she muttered to Lee.

"Sure." Lee said. "I think..." his eyes glazed over slightly as he thought of all the green in his life. "Well... isn't it the best colour though?"

Rolling her eyes at him again, she raised her hand and neatly smacked him on the back of his head.

"There are other colours better than green out there!" she said crossly.

"Like what?" Lee demanded.

"Well, for example..." Kaiya tapped her chin with her finger. "... My favourite colour is blue."

"It is?" Lee screwed his nose. "Why do you like blue?"

"It's like water" Kaiya said dreamily. "So smooth and cool and lovely..."

"Water is not 'cool'" Lee said dryly. "It's _cold_ and _wet_ and did I mention you can _drown_ in it?"

"Don't dis water."Kaiya said crossly. "It's the best ele..."

"Why do _you_ love water so much? Did you just say it was the best element?" Lee looked really confused. "But you're earth kingdom."

"Uh..." Kaiya suddenly realised what she had been saying. "Look at those pretty flowers over there!" she tugged at Lee's arm, dragging him over to the next ally: the ally of roses. Not a great name really, considering that they sold all types of plants there.

The last slip up was her worst, and the really bad part about it... she didn't even realise what she had done until it was too late.

* * *

"Kaiya! Kaiya!" Lee called as he sprinted down the corridor, a couple of the girls poked their heads out from their rooms as he passed, rolling their eyes. "Kaiya?" he skidded to a halt outside of her bedroom.

The door was firmly closed, either she did not want him coming in, she wasn't there or she didn't hear him. He reached out a hand for the door handle, there was no point in knocking, if she hadn't heard him yell she had to be day dreaming in there, and she defiantly wouldn't hear a knock while she was day dreaming. If the door wouldn't open that would mean that she didn't want him to come in, in that case she would have slid the dead bolt across the door.

He reached out for the handle and clasped it slowly. He twisted the knob slowly and stepped back, breath catching in his throat. The door creaked open, revealing Kaiya's room. But it wasn't Kaiya's room as it had been when he had been there last. It was covered in a tidal wave of parchment. It was everywhere, investing the room like a parasite.

Lee stepped inside nervously, he looked to the left and to the right, there was no sign of the small earth bender girl he called his best friend.

"Kaiya?" Lee called out, eyes searching. "What happened to your room?" his eyes skipped over her bed (covered in parchment) and her table (covered in parchment) to the opposite side of the room.

"Oh... the window's open..." Lee observed. Then he realised what was flying out the window. "Oh crap! The window's open!" Lee dived into the room as a ton of paper went flying. He waded over to the window and banged it shut, just before the paper could get sucked out.

"Phew..." Lee wiped his forehead dramatically. He started walking back towards the door, whistling to himself.

"Argh!" he screamed as he felt his foot catch hold of something under the paper, it slipped under the grip of his foot and tripped him. Next thing he knew he was lying on his back on the floor, groaning.

"What was _that_?" he moaned as he sat up. "These floors are way harder than they look; that _hurt_!"

He reached down and pulled the offending object from beneath his foot.

"Huh?" he scratched his head.

He was holding a deep blue cotton tunic, about the same size of a ten year old. It was trimmed in white and, if he squinted, he could see white embroideries all over.

"That's strange," He murmured, dumping the tunic back onto the floor.

Next to where the tunic was lying was a piece of parchment covered in a scrawling script. Lee thought at first that they were just Kaiya's History notes or something, until he looked closer and saw it wasn't her writing, though it was similar.

He picked up the piece of parchment, now curious.

* * *

_Dear Kaiya_

_I can't believe I'm actually writing to you! I was amazed when I got woken up in the middle of the night by the strangest bird I've ever seen and found it was carrying a letter from you!_

_Anyway, things are okay over here. It's really strange without you here. Everybody looks at me differently now, I'm not just one of the twins, I'm a single person now and people don't quite know how to go about it. For instance, Dana was talking to me the other day and in the middle of the conversation she just looked over my shoulder and opened her mouth. As soon as she saw no one was there she just shut her mouth and carried on talking to me as though nothing had happened. I knew though that she had thought of something that she wanted to say to you. _

_Ma was very upset with the whole 'you became a master without her permission' thing. After you left she questioned me for ages, she wanted to know where you had learnt it all; don't worry, I didn't give Gran away._

_Master Perrou has had a bee in his bonnet ever since you revealed you're awesomeness, he hates me now but it can't be helped. The other day he got drenched by a couple of five year olds practicing on a balcony above where he was teaching. Most of us cracked up laughing._

_I wish you were here; I suck at history now I can't borrow your notes. How are you holding up with the school work in the earth kingdom? Is it better or worse than here? I mean, I'm not sure whether I should be jealous of you or pitying you._

_Your brother _

_Kouyo_

* * *

Lee looked up from the letter, eyebrows snapped together in his signature look of confusion. _Kaiya's twin brother got the letter she sent?_ He thought. _I never knew. And why did the master what's-his-name gets drenched while 5 year olds were practicing. Were they practicing cannonballs or something?_

He shook his head and bent down, looking for another letter amongst the pile of blank paper and Kaiya's notes from school.

* * *

_Dearest Twin sister_

_How fast does sniffles fly anyway? I only sent that letter night before last and yet here is another letter, attached to the leg of your strangely awesome messenger bird._

_What can I say? Oh... the Water Priests were overjoyed for your letter to them. They gave me a reply and I'll send it at the same time as this._

_It's great that you have found a friend, this Lee guy sounds cool. The stuff you guys did sounded suspiciously like that prank we benders played on Miss Dew once, do you remember? The giant frozen block of ice we placed above her desk. It was hard to unfreeze it so it would pour down on her head remember? We were only about eight. We had a month's detention but it was so worth it, she was an old hag. I suppose a bucket works just as well, not as good though as ice though._

_I'm having a bit of trouble with the water slice, Master Perrou keeps yelling at me; I can't seem to be able to hold it in the air for as long as I need to, should I do more chi exercises? You're the expert here. _

_Missing you_

_Kouyo_

* * *

"The _Water_ slice?" Lee whispered hoarsely. "What?" he dropped the letter and scrabbled on the ground for the next one.

* * *

_Dear Kaiya_

_Thanks for your help with my Water bending, you always were better than me, even though I'm being taught at the Water academy with the masters of the northern water tribe and you were taught by Gran Gran in a secret cave in the middle of the tundra._

_How's the earth bending training going? You don't really tell me in your letters; is that Lee dude teaching you well? I don't know much about the earth kingdom but is it usual for you only to get a few hours of schooling a day? I'm so jealous. I still have to sit through six hours of writing and maths and history every day, it's not fair._

_It's really sad, but no one talks to about you at home any more, it's like taboo, a forbidden subject. I know you're missed at school, snowball fights aren't the same now that there are only two girl benders. We boys have four and it's clearly uneven, with you there we could have had a jolly fight._

_I told Dana I was writing to you, I knew she wouldn't tell, she's one of your best friends (apart from me) and I was right. She told me to say 'hi' to you from her. And that she thinks that you're brilliant for being a master. She whispered that she wants you to teach when you get back, if you're ok with that._

_Maybe I should ask Gran Gran to teach her. What do you think?_

_Well, I can't wait for your next letter!_

_Your Twin_

_Kouyo_

* * *

The letter slipped out of his frozen fingers and drifted back to the floor. Lee blinked and watched it fall, brain whirring inside his brain.

_Kaiya... can't be...she... earth bender... seen her..._ his brain skittered around trying to make sense of what he had just read. _Water bending?_ He thought faintly.

He lurched to the door, trying not to slip on the smooth paper. Sprinting down the hallway, he was vaguely aware of the girls from before, rolling their eyes at him once again.


	17. Confusion

_HELLO! I'm BACK!_

_Our computer got a virus, so, no computer for AGES! I managed to save all of my writing though! Enjoy the latest chapter, I'll try and put another on asap, Ok?_

_: )_

_

* * *

_

Chapter 16

Kaiya was reading an earth bending scroll on the lawn at this present time, unaware that her best friend was freaking out at that present moment.

"So the left is the most important here..." Kaiya muttered to herself. "Right."

She traced the arrows up and down. Her earth bending teachers loved to give them scrolls to study and memorise, their favourite type of torture. Little did they know that Kaiya actually liked these types of lessons.

She went over the rest of the scroll easily and was soon finished. Now she just had to locate her AWOL friend and have some fun. It was weird, maybe Lee forgot that they were supposed to be studying outside tonight. It wasn't like Lee to miss studying sessions. It worked great, Lee would help Kaiya with earth bending homework and she would help Lee with his History Homework. It was a private joke to her that she knew more about his nation's history than he did.

But then, she did have a knack for remembering dates. That was probably why.

Kaiya stood, snapping the scroll shut. _Well, I did my homework tonight without him. Its fine, he probably had something else on._

She set off for the temple sleeping quarters, planning to drop her study stuff off in her room before starting her search for Lee.

She trudged up the hill to the temple and through the back entrance. At the door to her room she stopped dead.

The door was wide open displaying the wreckage of what looked like a tornado aftermath.

There was paper shoved everywhere, her desk had been tipped over and her bags up ended on the floor. Someone had trashed her room while she was out.

Kaiya turned back to the corridor. The girls that usually hung around and sniggered when she walked past weren't there. She tip toed down the hall, heading for the ringleader's bedroom, at the end of the corridor.

She silently kicked the door. The lock clicked and it swung open. Inside was a hoard of giggling girls. Most of them laughed out loud when they saw her. Kaiya knew then they were the culprits. And this panicked her, what if they had seen? Her throat seized up.

She located the Leader, a snobbish girl named Sara.

"What do you want freak?" She looked down her nose at Kaiya, raising her eyebrows. "Did you like our redecorating skills?"

Kaiya cut straight to the chase. She grabbed Sara by her nice silk clothes and held her up in the air. She was much stronger now, due to all the earth bending. Sara squealed like a pig and scrabbled at her hands.

"Let me go Freak!" she yelled

The other girls were shocked into silence; they all watched and waited to see what would happen.

Kaiya slammed her into the wall, hard.

"I need you to tell me _exactly_ what you did in my bedroom." She said fiercely.

"No...nothing." the girl stuttered. "We were just kidding around."

"What did you look at? Did you go through my things?"

"No... we just shoved the paper around and emptied your bags... that's all. It took, like, five minutes, Right girls?"

The group nodded numbly.

Kaiya relaxed her grip, letting Sara slip to the floor. She didn't actually want to hurt anyone, just frighten them a bit. She didn't really like violence.

"Stay OUT of my room from now on. GOT IT?" she glared at the gang of girls.

They all nodded, not surprisingly.

Kaiya gave them one last glare before sweeping out of the room and back to her own to start cleaning up.

* * *

It took her another hour to gather up the paper and stow all her things away. She discovered her water tribe clothes under a giant mound of Kouyo's letters. She usually kept them hidden in the bottom of her earth kingdom bag.

By the time she had finished it was time for Dinner and she still hadn't gone looking for Lee. She walked to the dining room, hoping to see him there.

As she walked in the girl table went silent, staring at her. She turned her back on them and went to get some of the stew that they were serving tonight. It looked like it was some kind of mushroom and beef stew, but she wasn't sure. For all she knew it could have been broccoli and chicken.

She walked slowly with her tray to the back of the dining room, where she and Lee usually had a small table to themselves. Her luck was in, Lee was already seated, picking at his stew and not eating a single bite.

Kaiya frowned, that wasn't like Lee, he was a boy on the verge of puberty. No food survived in his presence. So why hadn't that stew disappeared yet?

"Hey!" Kaiya said cheerfully, sliding her tray down next to him. "What's up? Why didn't you come to our study spot today?"

Lee said nothing. He picked up his spoon and started to slosh around the cold liquid.

"Hello?" Kaiya waved a hand in front of his face. "Earth to Lee?"

Lee turned away, swivelling his body until he had shut her out completely.

"Are you mad at me or something?" She said nervously.

"No." It was the first thing he had said to her all night.

"Why are you ignoring me?" Kaiya heard her voice go slightly louder than ordinary. Other kids had started to stare at them now.

"Just leave me alone, I'm confused, back off!" Lee almost yelled the last sentence, drawing the full attention of the dining room. He stood, avoiding her gaze and stormed over the washers. He placed his still full tray down with a bang and departed the room as fast as he could.

Kaiya felt like crying.

She didn't bother to follow Lee; he was still a better earth bender than her. He would easily be able to overpower her and kick her butt. Instead she sat, picking at her food while the entire temple whispered and stared. Only once the stew grew cold did she finally pick up her tray and take it over to the washers.

* * *

Lying awake that night, she thought.

She thought about Lee, and what could possibly be wrong. _Was it something I said? Something I did?_ She wished she knew.

She thought about Kouyo, living normally back at the North Pole. _Is he scorned now as the freaky water bending girl's brother? Did he get dirty looks from strangers now because of what I did? _Kouyo also had to live with water bending lessons everyday under Master Perrou. She felt sorry for him about that.

She thought about earth bending.

And water bending.

And fire bending.

And air bending.

_Will they be hard? Hard to master? I'm so confused. I wish there was an avatar to teach me, I wish that there was someone who could teach me what I'm supposed to do. I have no idea what I'm doing after I leave the air temples. Do I just sweep back to the north pole and shout the truth to everyone?_

_I don't know._


	18. The Beginnings of a Friendship

_I've started to get back into my writing groove! Even though I'm a little tired I've managed to write another chapter! There was a 4.7 aftershock last night at 1.30 in the morning, I'm still yawning! Hope you like this chapter!_

_; )_

_

* * *

_

Chapter 17

A week. That was how long it took for Kaiya to start going backwards. She withdrew into her shell again. She had forgotten how lonely she was without Lee.

She had forgotten...

* * *

_My first day. _Kaiya looked up at the amazing wall hangings of the main temple. _I have earth bending all day to day, to learn the basics. This should be fun, and Lee look pleased that he had to skip a day of school to teach some kid earth bending. _

She had been standing here for half an hour, waiting for him to show up. So far, nothing.

_Where is he?_

How was she supposed to learn earth bending with no teacher?

"Yo!" The voice rang out very loud across the quiet temple hall.

She whipped around, startled slightly. Lee was leaning up against one of the temple arches, holding the appearance of a cool kid. He flicked his hand at her, motioning her to follow. She sighed, he was using a bit too much drama, just her personal opinion. She decided she had better follow him, she had no idea where she was going if she didn't.

He led her to a different training room than the day before. This one was smaller, the walls looked strong, made of some indestructible rock in case an out of control student bashed them up a bit. Kaiya had got the feeling that fixing up the wall you had just destroyed was a bit out of character for a beginner. She didn't think that this Lee boy was impressed very often.

Lee had dumped his bag in the corner of the room. It made a dull thud, like there were a ton of textbooks rattling around inside.

Lee looked at her sullenly. "Master Earthwave said if you were doing the drills confidently, after a while I could do some of my school work here."

"That's good!" Kaiya said brightly, trying to be friendly.

"Not really." Lee said flatly.

"Oh..." It looked like she had said the wrong thing.

"Well, you want to get started." Lee said.

"Uh... sure..." Kaiya said, not moving from the spot she was standing on.

"Well, first thing, take your shoes off." Lee bent down to unfasten his own scuffed sandals.

"Um... take off my shoes?" Kaiya was unsure that she had heard right.

"Yeah..." Lee looked at her oddly. "Gotta have contact with the earth, vibrations and all." Lee smirked. "Me? I go barefoot whenever I can; the Temple doesn't make me unless it's for something important. This is my only pair of shoes."

Kaiya looked in shock at the battered old leather shoes. She was about to pipe up that he'd get frostbite in ten seconds flat if he ever went to the North Pole. _Earth kingdom person, remember, Kaiya the earth bender has never been within a hundred kilometre radius of the North Pole. Earth bender Kaiya has no idea what life in the water tribes is like. _

"Are you sure?" Kaiya asked.

"Yes." Lee said exasperatly. "Just take them off."

"Okay..." Kaiya bent down and unfastened the knot binding the flimsy sandals to her feet. She slipped out of them gently and firmly placed her two bare feet on the ground.

Kaiya made a face. "That feels strange." She grinned.

Lee peered at her water tribe tanned feet. Her olive skin tone was very convenient for hiding the fact that her feet had never seen the sun before. They had always been trapped in one pair of boots or the other. Hopefully Lee would find nothing strange about her feet.

"What?" She demanded

"Nothing." Lee said quickly. "Haven't you ever gone bare foot, you know, at the beach or something?"

"No." Kaiya said flatly.

"Well, you should." Lee turned away.

"Does it matter?" Kaiya said.

"What do you know about earth bending?" Lee changed the subject abruptly.

"I know it involves a bunch of people chucking rocks at each other."

"Wrong!" Lee said crossly.

"So you're saying in the entire history of earth bending, people have never spent time chucking rocks at each other?"

"That's not the point, only uncivilised benders see earth bending as just 'chucking rocks at each other'."

Kaiya stayed silent. She was slightly intimidated by this lanky boy. He towered over her small body even though they were around the same age. Kaiya guessed this was because she was small for her age, Lee was the opposite; he was tall for his age.

_We make a bit of a comic pair_, Kaiya grinned.

"What?" Lee said, curious to see what was amusing.

"Nothing."

"We should get started now then," Lee said. He positioned himself in front of her, trying to make himself look important. "We start by basic earth bending forms. First, to move a rock."

He sank deep into a sturdy stance. He crashed his foot upon the ground, causing a small bolder to emerge from the hard packed soil.

Kaiya watched, so far unimpressed. She had figured out how to do that already.

"Now you try." Lee dared her.

Kaiya imitated the movement, also managing to raise a rock from the ground.

Lee looked slightly thrown. "I thought you hadn't had any training before?" He asked.

"You saw me yesterday, I taught a bit to myself." Kaiya shrugged.

"But..." Lee frowned, "You did that move flawlessly. No beginner can perfect moves that fast."

"I practice." Kaiya said firmly, "That's all; maybe it's just in my blood or something?"

Lee shook his head. "Let's just do the next one."

He bunched his fist at the rock and smashed his foot on the ground. He raised the fist and swung it around in a smooth arc. The rock followed his every order.

Kaiya breathed in and out slowly, like her grandmother had taught her for water bending. She felt her chi surge powerfully underneath her skin.

She stuck her fist out, praying to Twi that she wouldn't screw this up. She focused and stomped her foot.

The rock shattered into a thousand pieces.

Lee jumped and brought his hands up to his face to shield himself.

"Wow." He sounded awed.

"What did I do wrong?" Kaiya said in a small voice.

"This is insane." Lee crept over to the rock. "You gave it too much power!"

"Too much?"

"Yeah, made it explode with all that extra chi. At least, that's my theory. This doesn't happen much."

"How come?"

"Most beginners don't have enough energy; I doubted that you would have enough chi output for an entire day of training. But now..." He glanced back at the pile of stone chips that was once Kaiya's stone. "Have you learnt anything about chi?"

"Yeah," Kaiya said. _it shouldn't be a giveaway that I'm the avatar that I've learnt about chi, I can just say that the spirit woman in our village taught me, and it was the only training that I've had for earth bending._

"You've learnt about chi?" Lee looked astonished.

"Yeah, an old woman taught me, she wasn't a bender, but she was in touch with the spirits and knew all about chi, she taught me some."

Lee sighed "That explains it, you have stronger chi than a usual beginner."

"So... Now what?" Kaiya asked.

"We have to modify our lessons to accommodate that factor." Lee sighed and drooped. "Aww man!"

"I'm sorry."Kaiya said sincerely.

"No you're not..." Lee retorted. "Nobody ever feels sorry for me, once you've been here a while, you'll know."

"Haven't found any reason why I should ignore you yet." Kaiya said slowly.

"You will,"

"You said that yesterday!" Kaiya said crossly. "What's the huge deal? Why can't we be friends?"

"I'm just your tutor for the time being... you want to return to what we're doing?"

"Oh... right, let's do that." Kaiya dropped her voice and returned to her bending stance.

Lee carried on teaching her for most of that day. Time after time she managed to catch on to what each move was about. By the end of the day she had completely mastered four techniques and was pretty good at five others.

* * *

By the end of the third day she was equal in skill to those in the bottom class of the temple. At the end of the week of catch up training she was ready to begin in the third lowest earth bending class. She advanced easily at first, each move was harder than the last, but not that much harder.

It creeped Lee out.

He tried to avoid her as soon as his teaching was over, for four weeks he had tried to keep away from her. She was a strange person. She knew he wasn't cool and yet she still persisted in trying to be friendly. All the other kids he had tutored before had been distant and cold to him as soon as they found out his status at this temple. They had payed attention to his earth bending instruction but as soon as they were caught up they ditched him.

Kaiya was most probably the most talented earth bender he had ever seen. He wouldn't have been surprised if she had completely mastered earth bending in a couple of years. It was amazing, and if Lee was completely honest with himself he knew that he was jealous. He had trained for years and years, most of his childhood was spent inside this temple, and he was one of the youngest benders close to mastering earth bending.

So what if this girl managed to do that before him?

So he avoided her, he wanted for her to disappear, go back to where ever she had come from. She was messing things up.

"Hello!" Kaiya said shyly. She had just come out of the earth temple library, probably studying the earth bending scrolls again. That was another thing that annoyed him, she was totally committed to her studies, when she wasn't in class she was practicing bending. When she wasn't bending she was studying scrolls _about_ bending. Her dedication was weird.

"Go away." He did not want to talk to her, not now.

"What're you doing?" Kaiya asked.

"Stuff." Lee said stiffly, he did not want this unnatural girl to follow him.

"What sort of stuff?" Kaiya wanted to know.

"Studying." He had a history test on Friday, he desperately needed to study. Not hang around talking to the new girl.

"Oh, Okay. I've just finished in the library; I guess I'll see you tomorrow." She twirled her fingers at him in a mock wave and disappeared as quickly as she had come.

Lee was startled. He had thought she was one of those clingy types. Limpets that stuck to the first person they saw at a new place. He had to rearrange his thoughts about this girl, again.

Lee shook his head and carried on ahead to the library, there was no time to worry over the new kid now, he had to study.

* * *

Lee was a natural loner; most people didn't like him anyway, so why make friends? They were scared of the fact that he was a first grade master, how many ten year olds do you meet with that kind of power? What was freaky was that he did it in about four years, and he was close to getting even better.

Lee did better in his own company than with others. That was the point here. And there aren't that many things at the Omashu earth temple that a person can do by themselves... that are not against the rules.

If you're a goody good loner you could do extra studying...

Or if you're Lee you could sneak away and go to the massive Omashu market in your free time.

If you're a terrible earth bender loner you could go to one of the practice courts and go over that day's lesson...

Or if you're Lee you can earth bend a few joke traps and laugh as other students fall in.

And if you are a timid loner you could spend your time quietly reading in the library...

Or you could be like Lee, who goes out to ride the Omashu delivery system.

So you can see, Lee was not your typical loner, and today was no different. Because he had finished all his school work and his earth bending lessons had finished early, he now had free time for the next two hours before he had to go back to the earth temple to tutor Kaiya.

Sneaking out of the earth temple was never hard. The entire city was made out of rock for the spirit's sake. It was an insult to his abilities to suggest he couldn't sneak out in five minutes flat. Put simply, he just earth bended a small tunnel, just big enough for a gangly ten year old, through his bedroom floor and up into the abandoned house across the street. He then exited the house from the back window (the only exit not facing the earth temple) and climbed into the small park over the back fence.

This was where he was now, brushing any lingering dirt off of his clothing and whistling softly. He liked the temple, it was a cool home, there just wasn't that much freedom. Well, he would have a lot more freedom if he didn't get into trouble so often. For example, flicking rocks at other students in history class generally made you unpopular with the history teacher, who then, in turn, gave the order that you were to be confined to the temple for the next week. Not that it made much difference, he had got into trouble so many times he had temple confinement lined up for the next six months. If he wanted to get out, it had to be sneakily.

Lee slipped a wide hat onto his head, the bad thing about sneak town visits was that anyone could recognise him, and report him, so he had to go in disguise all the time. A wicked grin spread out under the wide brim of the hat, besides, he needed a disguise anyway for what he was about to do.

Lee started walking up the steep hill of the main city street, continuing the merry whistle all up the road.

* * *

Lessons were always so boring, Kaiya sighed a rested her head in her hands. It always struck her as funny that she knew more about earth kingdom history than the temple kids in her class. At least they weren't doing anything boring like water tribe history. She had heard most of the same history too many times by now.

She glanced out of the window. The sky was an incredible bright blue today, which only made her even more bored and frustrated. She wanted to do something _fun_. She liked history, but only when it was new to her and the other kids weren't being annoying.

So she just continued to stare out her window into the blue, blue sky.

* * *

Lee was now tucked into an out of the way part of the city. Not a lot of people had the stamina to climb all the way to the top of the city and there was nothing really up here except a few posh houses and the palace of the Omashu 'king'. Only the rich could afford a litter or an ostrich-horse to do their climbing for them.

At the moment he was sitting, perched, on the side of the large earth container, more commonly used for delivering mail around the city.

"Am I really going to go through with this?" Lee said quietly to himself. He gazed down at the dizzyingly high slide just a metre in front of him.

Lee grinned brightly, _of course I'm going to do this, I didn't walk up this stupid hill for nothing._

He bunkered down in the container and motioned with his hands. The container swept smoothly forward.

"One quick ride," He promised himself. "Then back to the temple."

He pushed with his earth bending, sending the container toppling off the cliff.

* * *

Kaiya breathed out a sigh of relief as she exited the class room. That morning had been so boring she had wanted to cry. But she was free now, at least until her lesson with Lee.

She separated from the other kids as soon as they walked through the corridors. They were all heading off to their earth bending lessons in other parts of the temple. She still wasn't good enough to be in their classes, she was getting tutored by Lee. Lee had his earth bending lessons in the morning while she had school. He was supposed to be in school while she got bending lessons, but they had excused him until she was a little better.

Kaiya walked slowly down the corridors and out into the temple garden. She loved the gardens, they were proof that the earth kingdom wasn't just about the hard rock under the surface, rather, the earth kingdom was also about the grass and the trees and the animals that all thrived in the earth. Kaiya especially loved grass; she had only ever seen grass once before she came here. The only grass growing at the North Pole was at the spirit oasis, so it was a novelty. Here in the earth kingdom it was in abundance, and everyone took it for granted.

Kaiya flopped down beneath her favourite tree. It was a large leafy one she didn't know the name of. It rested on the bank of the small pond in the middle of the garden. It was a nice spot. That was another thing the North Pole didn't have; trees. They were just as wonderful as grass.

_Does the earth kingdom know what wonderful treasure they have?_ Kaiya wondered dreamily, eyes half closed. She yawned and leaned back against the solid trunk.

**CRASH!**

A deafening squeal of breaking roof tiles and wood snapping rebounded through the air.

Kaiya sat bolt upright, shocked out of her trance like state. She glanced frantically around for the source of the noise, covering her ears and wincing. It seemed to be coming from outside the garden, in the direction of the Omashu main market. Kaiya ran to the high wall surrounding the area and jumped nimbly up to the top.

From the wall she could see most of lower Omashu, including the market a few streets away. Kaiya whistled softly, there was some sort of commotion at the market. She leaned forward and squinted, trying to pick out the distant images.

From what she could see one of the of the delivery carts had crashed in the middle of the main market, destroying one market stall and damaging a few more as it crashed through. There were fruits and vegetables everywhere as well as various items that had been knocked over. Kaiya scanned the market until she saw where the cart had ended up. It was lying on its side, next to another destroyed stall. She brought her hand to her forehead, shading her eyes and looked again. Now she could see a small figure in a wide brimmed hat step shakily out of the delivery cart and tumble to the ground.

_Bet he got more of a ride than he bargained for._ Kaiya smiled wryly. She had heard of the famous second use for the Omashu delivery system.

Kaiya began to feel sorry for the boy; the Stall owner was yelling at him and shaking his fist. The Omashu guards were already walking through the market to see what the problem was. If he wasn't careful he could get arrested.

Kaiya peered at the boy more closely. He seemed familiar now. His green tunic and white pants were grimy, but recognisable. His hair might have been black and curly but it was hard to tell at this distance, especially since the boy was wearing a hat.

Kaiya shook her head, _what do I do? Do I go and help him? What if I get caught?_ Her common sense was telling her to stay in the earth temple, hope he gets out of the mess himself. She knew that was wrong however. Lee was her tutor; she'd never be able to face him again if she let this go.

"Bummer." She muttered.

* * *

Sliding down the other side of the fence was harder than it looked. It was quite a high wall and there were no handy vines like on the opposite side. She was quite a nimble person naturally but she still ended up on her butt. She stood up quickly and dusted off her clothes before any passersby saw her embarrassment.

Kaiya still wasn't sure of her way around Omashu, but she knew where the market was. So now she headed off there at a run. As soon as she was slowed to a half walk she knew she had to be nearby. Markets were the same everywhere, she remembered the main one at home, and how it always took forever to press through the crowds.

As soon as she hit these crowds she knew it was time to get pushy, otherwise she would never get to Lee in time.

"Excuse me." She said quietly as she wormed through the gaps in the crowd, "Pardon me,"

A young man holding a tray of cakes scowled at her as she narrowly missed knocking it out of his hands.

"Sorry." She apologised, diving through another gap into a large pocket of space.

Unknown to her she had reached the market awhile ago, now she was standing in amongst the wreckage of the cart crash. Most of the shopkeepers looked distressed and one elderly man was in tears.

"My Cabbages! MY CABBAGES!" He shrieked, clawing at the remains of his stall.

Kaiya raced over to the cabbage stall and patted the cabbage man on the shoulder. He was now screaming about the punishment that Lee should receive.

"Don't touch me!" He yelled hoarsely, wrenching his shoulder out of her grip. He turned around to face her. "Oh, it's you." The Cabbage man sniffed.

"Yeah, it's me." Kaiya replied. "I saw your stall was broken, is there anything I can do to help you?"

The cabbage man looked at her blankly. "Help me?" He seemed surprised.

"Yeah, you gave me a ride to Omashu; I wanted to pay you back." Kaiya said with a small smile.

"Well, okay... I Guess..." From his startled look it was obvious that no one had offered to pay him back before.

"What shall I do?" She asked politely.

"Well... Uh..." Now he had help he had no idea what to do with her. He kept opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.

Kaiya thought quickly, she had to get Lee away before he got arrested. "How about I turn the offender in to the Omashu guards, then come back and help you with collecting the cabbages?"

"That sounds good. " The cabbage man sounded more confident. "You take the boy, I'll take care of the stall, don't worry about coming back and helping. I'll be ok, This sort of thing happens a lot." He shot an extremely dark look at Lee.

"Really?" Kaiya said in surprise.

"This kind of thing has happened to my family since Avatar Aang's time." The Cabbage man said mournfully, "I wish I knew what we did to annoy the spirits."

Kaiya patted him reassuringly on the back and moved over towards Lee. He was being held prisoner by a couple of the other stall owners. One of them was a butcher, and was holding a large meat cleaver menacingly in front of Lee, It was no puzzle why Lee hadn't tried to escape.

"I'll take him to the guards" Kaiya told the slightly skinnier stall owner.

Lee looked up, startled at the sound of her voice. He rubbed his forehead, probably puzzling over her sudden appearance.

"A little thing like you?" The butcher butt in, "Could you handle him if he tries to escape?"

Kaiya grinned, "I'm a lot stronger than I look." She said evilly, sneakily winking at the astonished Lee. "Watch this."

She thrust her foot forward just as Lee had taught her last week. A tall spire of earth erupted upwards behind Lee. The stall keepers jumped.

"Earth bender eh?" The skinny one said.

"I'm only a student, but I think I can handle this guy." Kaiya grinned confidently. "He's not an earth bender, is he?"

The two stall owners peered at Lee. He shook his head.

_So he picked up on my plan finally_, Kaiya thought, _he's not as thick as he tries to pass off all the time._

"Right then," the butcher seemed to have relaxed now. "I guess that's okay, you seem to be able to hold your own against him." He stepped aside, But not before leering at Lee menacingly. "If I even here a whisper of you causing any trouble for the young miss, I will find you, you got that?"

Lee whimpered.

"Well, come on." Kaiya ordered, poking Lee as gently as she dared, "Start walking."

Lee put his head down and shuffled forward convincingly dejected. By the time they rounded the corner he had started to grin.

Together they ran through the streets, making for the high temple wall. Lee started to laugh like a maniac as they vaulted themselves over into the garden.

"That was brilliant work, my young pupil!" Lee couldn't stop himself laughing; he fell to his knees, clutching his stomach.

Kaiya's mouth twitched. "I know I'm brilliant, tell me something I don't know!" She, too, started to laugh.

"Well..." Lee stood up, wiping away his tears, "You have earned my respect, and my friendship, if you want it?"

Kaiya looked at the outstretched hand that Lee was offering her. This was something she had not really expected when she left the northern water tribe. She did not think she would ever find friends or feel at home anywhere else but the north.

Kaiya clasped his hand, a warm feeling of hope bubbling up inside her.

Lee grinned, showing white teeth. He spun around and started trudging back to the temple.

"Are you coming?" He yelled, "We still have that earth bending to do!"

Kaiya shook her head, a wide grin spreading across her face, and began to trudge up the hill after him.

* * *

_He He He! Return of the cabbage merchant! I just love that dude! I was reading on the internet that there is going to be another Avatar season; the Legend of Korra! Aparently there may be something in it that invoves the cabbage merchant! Exciting!_


	19. Thinking

_Sorry, it is a very, very, very, very short chapter this time._

_

* * *

_

Chapter 18

The next day Kaiya had to carry on like normal. Though she zoned out through most of her lessons, trying to think of why Lee was avoiding her like this.

_It's not fair,_ she thought, _I wish I knew what I did wrong._

Kaiya sighed, doodling swirls all over her maths notes.

_He has to face me at tutoring though._

Lee started to sweat as he put the clues together in his head.

_Kaiya can clearly earth bend... and her 'twin brother'... He obviously thinks she's a _**water bender**_..._

Lee twisted, thrusting his foot forward. His opponent went flying.

_... So what does that mean?_


	20. Kaiya's secret

_I'm getting a bit lazy with my fan fictions. And I feel really guilty. I should really take up a new year's resolution to finish this story, but It's starting to drag on. Should I keep going? Or just call it a day?_

_

* * *

_

Chapter 19

Lee envisioned going up to her at lunch, he imagined marching right up to her in the queue to receive the grotty rice and ham that was on the menu that day. He imagined looking her straight in the eye:

"Hey, you know Kaiya, when you told us that you were from the earth kingdom. Did you, well, lie?"

Yeah, that would go down well.

The reality was that he walked straight up to her, looked her straight in the eye, took a deep breath and...

"Your brother, Kouyo..." Lee began.

Kaiya's wide eyes opened in panic as she thrust wildly forward with her clenched fist.

"Ooff" all the air rushed out of his lungs and he doubled over, clutching his stomach. She had punched him! How dare she punch him! He straightened up, about to give her a piece of his mind when she grabbed his ear and yanked hard in the direction of the main doors.

"Ow... Ow... Ow..." He hobbled next to her, bending down low to release tension on his ear.

Suddenly, he was released, and he stood up, massaging his ear.

"OW." He grumbled loudly, glaring in Kaiya's direction.

Only Kaiya wasn't paying attention to his pain, she was too busy sealing the doors that lead into the temple garden with earth bending. Then she whirled to face him, tight lipped.

"How do you know Kouyo's name?" She hissed. "I never actually told you what my brother was called!"

"I read Kouyo's letter to you." Lee confessed, "He talked about stuff, water bending, I just want to know. What's going on?"

Kaiya's face drew pale, and Lee knew that something he had said had struck a nerve. She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out again, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead, something gave way inside her.

"What did you find out?" She whispered, keeping her eyes closed.

"Kouyo talked about you... and water bending." Lee said.

Kaiya opened her bright wide eyes and gave him a piercing stare. For the first time Lee noticed that her eyes were a startling, brilliant, icy blue.

Gesturing at him to sit down, Kaiya flicked her gaze away and began pacing. She stopped abruptly at the small pond in the middle of the garden. Lee ignored her order to sit down and walked up beside her instead, trying to keep his curiosity bottled up inside. Kaiya would speak when she was ready.

"As you know, my name is Kaiya Ruggasson. I am ten years old; I have a twin brother and a number of other siblings. I was banished from my home town about three and a half months ago; I've been here for three months, learning the art of earth bending from you."

Lee opened his mouth impatiently; Kaiya placed her hand gently over his mouth, plugging it before he could make a sound.

"Like I said, you know this already. The truth is just complicated, okay?"

Lee nodded and reigned himself in a little more. This was probably hard for Kaiya, and he would not make it any harder than necessary.

"I never told you why I was banished, that mystery was probably eating you up inside, huh?" She glanced quickly at Lee, hiding partly behind her loose, long fringe.

Lee nodded, smiling inwardly, Kaiya knew him so well already, better than anyone, even his missing mother.

"Look, I got banished because I was a girl that mastered water bending." Kaiya gushed all of a sudden. "I lived at the North Pole, there; girls are healers while the boys become the fighters. I didn't want to just be a healer. I went to the healing lessons like a good little water bender, but got fighting lessons from my grandmother in secret."

"Healer?" Lee squeaked.

Kaiya nodded and gulped, "I'm able to use water to mend wounds, illnesses, whatever."

"Right." Lee said faintly. "This doesn't explain how you can earth bend; do you have some sort of trick bending, so you can live here?" Lee feared the answer; he almost didn't want to know what she would say.

Kaiya bent her legs slightly, bending less than the familiar earth bending stance. She raised her hand, making the movement graceful and flowing. Lee hadn't known of the grace beneath her skin, it was astonishing.

A tendril of water flowed out of the pond, sparkling in the midday sun, throwing rainbows in the light. It flowed around her skin, a silky blue ribbon, following the direction of her arms.

Lee felt his mouth drop open, this time in amazement.

Kaiya turned round to face him, bending the water into a small globe in front of her chest.

"There was never any trick Lee," She said softly, "I can bend both elements."

Lee was beyond words now.

"After I was banished the water Priests took me aside, they told me to travel to the earth kingdom and make good use of this time. I've already mastered water." Kaiya shrugged, "Earth has been fun so far."

"You... You're..." Lee mumbled, his vision clouding.

"I'm the Avatar, Lee, master of all four elements" Kaiya said.

Black crept into the edge of Lee's vision and he swayed on his feet.

Kaiya frowned, "Lee? Is something wrong?"

Lee fell into the blackness and stopped thinking for a time.


End file.
